.^^. 



BecAuse 
I Loye YOU 

ANNA e, MACK 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



SlielfEi?-\iS4 



-i^a 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BECAUSE I LOVE YOU 



BECAUSE I LOVE YOU 
pom^ of lolie 



SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

ANNA E; MACK 



Love is too precious to be named 
Save with a reverence deep and high." 



LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers 

lo MILK STREET 
BOSTON 



^/37^"^ 



/ 



^ - v^ 




Copyright, 1894 
By Lee and Shepard 



All rights reserved 



Because I Love You 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

THESE POEMS, EXPRESSING WHAT IS TRUEST AND NOBLEST 

AND BEST IN HUMAN AFFECTION, AND LEADING 

TO THE DEARER LOVE OF GOD, ARE 

SELECTED AND ARRANGED 

BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. 

ANNA E. MACK. 



'T^HE Editor wishes to thank most cordially the 
authors who have so kindly permitted the use of 
their poems, and the publishers for permission to use 
copyrighted poems, — Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
Sons, Roberts Brothers, Macmillan & Co., George 
Gottsberger Peck; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and, 
others, — by whose permission, and by arrangement 
with whom, selections have been made from the fol- 
lowino; authors, whose works they publish: — 



George Arnold. 
Alice and Phcebe Gary. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
John Hay. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
William Dean Howells. 
George Houghton. 
Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. 
Lucy Larcom. 
Oscar Laighton. 
Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow. 
James Russell Lowell. 
S. Weir Mitchell. 

River Forest, III. 



E. S. Phelps-Ward. 
Laura C. Redden. 
Margaret J. Preston. 
John G. Sake. 
Frank Dempster Sherman. 
Edmund Clarence Sted- 

man. 
Stuart Sterne. 
Bayard Taylor. 
Celia Thaxter. 
Edith M. Thomas. 
John Greenleaf Whittier. 
Elizabeth Whittier. 
Mrs. a. D. T. Whitney. 

A. E. M. 



LIST OF AUTHORS. 



Addison, Joseph. page 

With what a graceful tenderness he loves . . . 113 

Love is not to be reasoned down or lost .... 140 

Allen, Elizabeth Akers. 

Four Words 80 

Angelo, Michael. 

Sonnet, "If it be true that any beauteous thing" 51 

Arnold, Edwin. 

From " The Book of Love " 5 

A Lover with his Loved One sailed the Sea ... 10 

Oh, if thou be'st True Lover 37 

On a Cyclamen 106 

Too full of Love my soul is to find place .... 152 

Naught is the same " as if Love had not been " . 196 

Not Death is strong enough to part asunder . . 212 

He and She 213 

Arnold, Matthew. 

Calais Sands 55 

Lovers 116 

Ah, Love ! let us be true 148 

Arnold, George. 

Among the Heather 165 

A Farewell 211 

Armstrong, George Francis. 

I loved thee for that dear deep lovingness ... 54 
ix 



Bailey, Philip James. page 

If aught can make me seek 42 

I remember the only wise thing I ever did . . . 49 
It has been such a day as that, thou knowest . . 88 

Bayly, Thomas Haynes. 

Won't You ? 92 

Barlow, George. 

Love on Deck eg 

Life's Gifts 123 

Love's Final Powers 149 

Together 201 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

I did hear you talk far above singing 115 

Best, Susie M. 

Herein is Love 11 

Blake, William. 

Love seeketh not itself to please 12 

Blake, James V. 

Wedded 132 

Bolton, Sara K. 

One Face 77 

BosTwicK, Helen Barron. 

Urvasi 81 

Brewer, Daniel Chauncey. 

Softly the Evening Shadows 43 

Brickhead, William Hunter. 

He was a friend indeed 18 

Brooke, Stopford A. 

May and Love 1 14 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. 

A Woman's Shortcomings ., 13 

My Kate 25 

Three Kisses 113 

My Letters 114 

X 



Browning, Robert. page 

For life, with all it yields of joy or woe .... 4 

Love is the only good in the world 126 

Love among the Ruins 134 

Bruce, Wallace. 

No life is so strong and complete 18 

Buchanan, Robert. 

To Harriett 45 

From " In the Garden " 115 

Burns, Robert. 

From " The Cotter's Saturday Night" .... 8 

A Red, Red Rose 59 

My Jean 146 

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Lord. 

Love 4 

Gary, Alice. 

Love ! blessed Love ! if we could hang our walls . 2 

From " Life's Mysteries " 91 

Love's light is strange to you .f* Ah, me! . . . 128 

The Unwise Choice 181. 

I hear a Dear, Familiar Tone 191 

O winds ! ye are too rough, too rough .... 206 

Gary, Phcebe. 

True Love 9 

The chords of love must be strong as death . . 68 

Life may to you bring every good 122 

Carpenter, Henry Bernard. 

He sang out of his soul what he found there . . 140 

Gassels, Walter R. 

Love took me softly by the Hand in 

Glemmer, Mary. 

For they alone have need of sorrow 143 

Good-by, Sweetheart 166 

Words for Parting 168 

xi 



Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. page 

Answer to a Child's Question ii6 

Thither where he lies buried 172 

Cooke, Rose Terry. 

Pour out thy love like the rush of a river ... 30 
Best 127 

Craik, Dinah Maria Muloch. 

I love you. Words are small 70 

The Boat of my Lover 163 

Peace, wild- wrung hands ! hush, sobbing breath ! . 172 
Three Meetings 209 

Crofts, George W. 

I Love You, Dear 71 

De Vere, Aubrey. 

Happy are They who kiss Thee 48 

Dickens, Charles. 

Song 201 

Dorr, Julia C. R. 

Thornless Roses 195 

Douglas. 

Annie Laurie 64 

Eliot, George. 

Two Lovers 107 

I think we had the chief of all love's joys ... 1x5 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. 

Give all to love 39 

Friendship 47 

Eros 138 

Gannett, W. C. 

In Twos 199 

Gardiner, Celia E. 

But oh ! 'twas hard to have him go, — to know . 164 

Gilder, Richard Watson. 

Oh, Love is not a Summer Mood 7 

xii 



Gilder, Richard Watson {conthmed). page 

The Smile of her I love 66 

Not from the whole wide world I choose thee . . 88 

A Woman's Thought 183 

After-Song 207 

Goethe. 

The Loved One Ever Near 164 

Gray, Maxwell. 

Rondel 178 

Greenwell, Dora. 

Home 102 

Halm. 

A Question 12 

Havergal, Francis Ridley. 

From " The Message of an ^olian Harp," — We 
cannot love too much 31 

Hay, John. 

Love's Prayer 66 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton. 

Love scorns Degrees 141 

Two Epochs 203 

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea. 

Happy, happier far than thou 99 

Love and Death 212 

Henley, William Ernest. 

Love Notes 117 

Hood, Thomas. 

1 Love Thee 72 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 

The Girdle of Friendship 21 

Where we love is home 108 

O lady, there be many things no 

Holland, Josiah Gilbert. 

A Tribute 24 



xiii 



Holland, Josiah Gilbert [continued). pagb 

From " The Mistress of the Manse " 45 

Eureka 123 

From " Katrina " 132 

HoLLEY, Marietta. 

Summer lOO 

Holm, Saxe. 

I cannot think but God must know 190 

Houghton, George. 

Four-Leaf Clover 94 

HowELLS, William Dean. 

Gone 161 

HowiTT, Mary. 

OLife! what after- joy hast thou 122 

Hugo, Victor. 

An Extravaganza 129 

Hunt, Leigh. 

For there are two heavens, sweet 105 

Better Things 131 

Hutchinson, Ellen Mackay. 

All the Year Round .144 

Ingelow, Jean. 

Learn that to love is the one way to know ... 32 

Love 67 

Lovers 90 

A weak white girl 98 

Love's Thread of Gold 133 

Divided 191 

I have the Courage to be Gay 196 

Jackson, Helen Hunt. 

Love's Fulfilling 35 

Two Truths 1 53 

Forgiven 157 

A Woman's Death-Wound 182 

Burnt Ships 184 

xiv 



Jewett, Sophie. page 

A Friendship 49 

Juan II., King of Castile. 

I never knew it, Love, till now 141 

Kemble, Frances Anne. 

Absence 162 

Ketchum, Annie Chambers. 

I cannot tell the spell that binds thine image . . 1 50 

Kingsley, Charles. 

Oh, That we Two were Maying 112 

Laighton, Oscar. 

The Clover Blossoms 63 

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth. 

All true deep feeling purifies the heart .... 50 

From " The Ancestress " 79 

She was sent forth 200 

Lanier, Sidney. 

Evening Song 96 

Larcom, Lucy. 

A Friend 19 

In the Air 50 

The cup of love the hands of two hold .... 95 

The Little Brown Cabin 100 

And in that twilight hush, God drew their hearts . 105 

The gate of Heaven is Love 138 

There is hope that is never put by 180 

Locker, Frederick. 

A Nice Correspondent 61 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. 

From " The Spanish Student " S;^ 

So these lives that had run thus far in separate 

channels 98 

From "The Hanging of the Crane" 106 

Something the heart must have to cherish . . . 1 11 

From '* The Children of the Lord's Supper " « . 138 

XV 



Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth {continued). page 

From " Evangeline " 149 

I do not love thee less for what is done .... 152 

friend ! O best of friends ! Thy absence more . 160 

From " Michael Angelo " 161 

The Two Locks of Hair 175 

From " Evangeline " 192 

Lowell, James Russell. 

Love 3 

With my love this knowledge too was given . . 52 

Her fittest triumph is to show that good . . . . 158 

Think not in death my love could ever cease . . 180 

Lynch, Anne C. 

Go forth in life not seeking Love ... . . 34 

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer. 

And love ? What was love, then 14 

O, near Ones, dear Ones 23 

Mackay, Charles. 

A Love Extravaganza 65 

Protestations 82 

Gone 127 

Manville, Marion. 

Scotch Heather 174 

Marston, Philip Bourke. 

What the Rose saw 89 

Parting Words 168 

MacDonald, George. 

The Sea-Shell 38 

Miller, Joaquin. 

From " The Sea of Fire " 7 

In a Gondola 60 

1 simply say that she is good 124 

Mitchell, S Weir. 

From «' The Cup of Youth " -]-] 



Morris, Lewis. page 

What shall I do for my Love 36 

MouLTON, Louise Chandler. 

At End 217 

O'Shaughnessy, Arthur. 

A Love Symphony 78 

Palgrave, Francis Turner. 

Love's Language 118 

Parker, Benjamin S. 

There is a glory in tree and blossom 119 

Patmore, Coventry. 

From " The Angel in the House " 46 

Going to Church 51 

She was mine loi 

Perry, Nora. 

Tying her Bonnet under her Chin 56 

Perry, Carlotta. 

Love is Eternal 210 

Peterson, Frederick. 

The Sweetest Flower that blows 72 

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. 

A Letter 155 

Planche, James Robinson. 

They Parted 165 

Preston, Margaret J. 

We Two 217 

Procter, Adelaide Anne. 

Because 75 

A Shadow 177 

Redden, Laura C. 

Which is Best 193 

Redi, Francesco. 

Love, the Musician 48 



XVll 



Riley, James Whitcomb. page 

At Noon and Midnight 153 

A Life Lesson 189 

Rogers, Samuel. 

Marriage 99 

Rollins, Alice Wellington. 

I know myself the Best Beloved of all . . . . 112 
RossETTi, Christina G. 

Sonnet, — Trust me, I have not earned your dear 
rebuke 34 

Sonnet, — O my heart's heart and you who are to me 7 5 
RossETTi, Dante Gabriel. 

There will I ask of Christ the Lord 210 

Sangster, Margaret Elizabeth. 

Our Own 154 

It isn't the thing you do, dear 157 

Saxe, John Godfrey. 

Kiss me softly 92 

Scott, Sir Walter. 

From " Lay of the Last Minstrel " 134 

Shakespeare, William. 

True Love 6 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. 

Love's Philosophy 95 

Sherman, Frank Dempster. 

On a Clock 118 

The Last Letter 142 

Spofford, Harriet Prescott. 

Measure for Measure 74 

Stearne, Stuart. 

Song from "Piero Da Castiglione" 117 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 

From " Alice of Monmouth " 15 

Song from a Drama Ti 

xviii 



Stoddard, Richard Henry. page 

From " The Castle in the Air " 37 

Under the Rose 65 

The Two Anchors 103 

Perhaps it will all come right at last 188 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. 

Nothing is better, I well know 1 22 

Taylor, Bayard. 

Proposal 93 

The Song of the Camp 125 

Taylor, Henry. 

From " Artevelde" 150 

Tennyson, Alfred. 

Am I not the nobler through thy love ? . . . . 42 

From " The Gardener's Daughter " 91 

Indeed I love thee 95 

From " Queen Mary," — The Happiest Hour . . 96 

From "Harold" 147 

We kissed again with Tears 1 56 

Not to be with you, not to see your face .... 160 

Days and Hours 167 

What Sequel? 196 

Love is come with a song and a smile 198 

From " Enoch Arden " 202 

Love and Death 207 

Thaxter, Celia. 

For Thoughts 102 

Presage 185 

Thomas, Edith M. 

The Heart's Call 145 

TiMROD, Henry. 

1 meet her on the dusty street 54 

Unknown. 

We love but Few 20 

xix 



Washburn, William T. page 

A Face 44 

Whittier, John Greenleaf. 

" I 'm sorry that I spelt the word " 71 

Benedicite 84 

The Two Loves 129 

From ** The Singer " 208 

From " Snow-Bound " 208 

From " To Lydia Maria Child " 212 

Whittier, Elizabeth. 

The Wedding Veil 173 

Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T. 

The Violet 216 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler. 

Love's Coming 5 

Friendship 22 

Love Much 33 

God measures souls by their capacity 47 

Woolsey, Sarah Channing. 

Some Lover's Dear Thought 43 

Love and Life 144 



XX 



I. 



Love! blessed Love ! if we could hang our walls witli 
The spletidors of a thousand rosy Mays^ 

Surely they would not shine so well as thou dost, 
Lighting our dusty days. 

Without thee what a dim and woful story 

Our years would be ^ oh, excellence sublime ! 

sup of the life eternal, brightly growing 
In the low soil of time. ■ 

Alice Gary 



POEMS OF LOVE 



LOVE 

TRUE Love is but a humble, low-born thing, 
And hath its food served up in earthenware ; 
It is a thing to walk with hand in hand, 
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world, 
Baring its tender feet to every roughness. 
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray 
From Beauty's law of plainness and content ; 
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile 
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home. 
Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must. 
And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless, 
Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth 
In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, 
Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit. 
As full of sunshine to our aged eyes 
As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. 
Such is true Love, which steals into the heart 
With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn 
That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, 
And hath its will through blissful gentleness, — 
Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, 
Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night 

3 



Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; 

A Love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, 

Not with flaw-seeking eyes hke needle-points. 

But, loving kindly, ever looks them down 

With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness; 

A Love that shall be new and fresh each hour, 

As is the golden mystery of sunset, 

Or the sweet coming of the evening star ; 

Alike, and yet most unlike, every day. 

And seeming ever best and fairest iiouu. 

James Russell Lowell 



LOVE 

YES, Love indeed is light from Heaven, 
A spark of that immortal fire 
With angels shared, by Allah given, 
To lift from earth our low desire. 
Devotion wafts the soul above. 
But Heaven itself descends in Love. 
A feeling from the Godhead caught, 
To wean from self each sordid thought! 
A ray of Him who formed the whole ; 
A glory circling round the soul ! 

Lord Byron 

FOR life, with all it yields of joy or woe, 
And hope and fear. 
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning Love, - 
How Love might be, hath been, indeed, and is. 

Robert Browning. 
4 



FROM "THE BOOK OF LOVE" 

THE Poet leads us — as I think — 
To this chief wisdom: that Love is not Love 
Except it tear forth Self-love from the breast, 
And so absorb the Lover in that frame 
Of imaged fairness, where he finds soul's lamp 
So draw, and daze, and tangle him with beams 
(Ever so darkly radiating from God), 
Beams all for him — albeit dull and dim — 
That he shall quite forget what else was dear, 
Wealth, comfort, peace, pleasure — nay, life itself — 
To live and die in light of those bright eyes. 
In reach of those sole arms, in blissful range 
Of music echoing from that one sweet mouth. 

Edwin Arnold 



LOVE'S COMING 

SHE had looked for his coming as warriors come. 
With the clash of arms and the bugle's call; 
But he came instead with a stealthy tread 
Which she did not hear at all. 



She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun, 
As he rode like a Prince to claim his bride ; 

In the sweet, dim light of the falling night 
She found him at her side. 



She had dreamed how the gaze of his strange, bold eye 
Would wake her heart to a sudden glow ; 

She found in his face the familiar grace 
Of a friend she used to know. 



She had dreamed how his coming would stir her soul, 
As the ocean is stirred by the wild storm's strife ; 

He brought her the balm of a heavenly calm, 
And a peace which crowned her life. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 



TRUE LOVE 

LET me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 
O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
It is the star to every wandering bark. 
Whose worth 's unknown although his height be taken. 
Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

William Shakespeare 



OH, LOVE IS NOT A SUMMER MOOD 

OH, love is not a summer mood. 
Nor flying phantom of the brain. 
Nor youthful fever of the blood. 

Nor dream, nor fate, nor circumstance. 
Love is not born of blinded chance, 
Nor bred in simple ignorance. 

Love is the flower of maidenhood ; 

Love is the fruit of mortal pain ; 
And she hath winter in her blood. 

True love is steadfast as the skies, 

And once alight she never flies ; 

And love is strong, and love is wise. 

Richard Watson Gilder 



FROM "THE SEA OF FIRE" 

HOW still she was. She only knew 
His love. She saw no life beyond. 
She loved with love that only lives 
Outside itself and selfishness, — 
A love that glows in its excess ; 
A love that melts pure gold, and gives 
Thenceforth to all who come to woo 
No coins but this face stamped thereon, — 
Ay, this one image stamped upon 
Its face, with some dim date long gone. 

Joaquin Miller 
7 



FROM "THE COTTER'S SATURDAY 
NIGHT " 

BUT, hark ! a rap comes gently to the door, 
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same. 
Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor. 
To do some errands and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 

Wi' heart-struck anxious care inquires his name, 
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleased the mother hears it 's nae wild, worth- 
less rake. 



Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben 

A strappin' youth ; he takes the mother's eye; 
Blithe Jenny sees the visit 's no ill ta'en ; 

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 

The youngster's artless heart o'crflows wi' joy, 
But blate and lathefu', scarce can weel behave ; 

The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave : 
Weel pleased to think her bairn 's respected like the 
lave. 



happy love ! — where love like this is found ! 
O heart-felt raptures! — bliss beyond compare 

1 've paced much this wear}', mortal round. 

And sage experience bids me this declare: — 
8 



If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
One cordial in this melancholy vale, 

'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale. 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening 
gale. 

Robert Burns 



TRUE LOVE 

I THINK true love is never blind. 
But rather brings an added light, 
An inner vision quick to find 
The beauties hid from common sight. 

No soul can ever clearly see / 
■ Another's highest, noblest part ; 
Save through the sweet philosophy 
And loving wisdom of the heart. 

Your unanointed eyes shall fall 

On him who fills my world with light ; 

You do not see my friend at all. 

You see what hides him from your sight. 

I see the feet that fain would climb ; 

You but the steps that turn astray ; 
I see the soul, the unharmed, sublime ; 

You, but the garment and the clay. 
9 



You see a mortal, weak, misled, 
Dwarfed ever by the earthly clod ; 

I see how manhood, perfected, 
May reach the stature of a god. 

Blinded I stood, as now you stand, 
Till on mine eyes, with touches sweet, 

Love, the deliverer, laid his hand, 
And lo ! I worship at his feet! 

Phcebe Gary 



A LOVER WITH HIS LOVED ONE SAILED 
THE SEA 

A LOVER, with his loved One sailed the sea, 
Voyaging home in tender company ; 
There blew a wind of Death upon the waters, 
There broke a billow of calamity ! 

It swept them from the deck to dreadful breast 
Of the black ocean. To that pair distressed 

The mariners flung forth a plank of rescue ; 
It reached them drowning on the tossing crest. 

Too slender 't was to help — if both should hold ; 
They saw him round the plank her weak arms fold. 

" Gir ! Dasti-yar-i-man ! " he uttered softly ; 
" Clasp ! hands ! dearer than Life to me ! " The cold 

lO 



Bitter salt swallowed him. But those who brought 
His beauteous Maid, saved by that sweet deed 
wrought, 
Spake saying, " Never lived there truer Lover, 
Majuum by such a marvel had been taught ! " 

Edwin Arnold 



HEREIN IS LOVE 

HEREIN is love: to take this strange sweet thing 
That we call life, and for love's sake to fling 
It to that outer darkness men deem death 
That love may have a longer, sweeter breath ; 
To face with unaffrighted heart the gloom, 
The terror and the agony of doom. 

Herein is love : to lift another's cross, 

To give away the gold and keep the dross, 

To trample into dust the worm of self, 

To crowd its clam'rings on the soul's back shelf ; 

Nor let it ever dare upraise its head. 

Deny its every call till it lies dead. 

Herein is love: to strip the shoulders bare. 
If need be, that a frailer one may wear 
A mantle to protect it from the storm, 
To bear the frost-king's breath so one be warm ; 
To crush the tears it would be sweet to shed, 
And smile so others may have joy instead. 
II 



Herein is love : to daily sacrifice 
The hope that to the bosom closest lies, 
To mutely bear reproach and suffer wrong, 
Nor lift the voice to show where both belong, 
Nay, now, nor tell it e'en to God above, — 
Herein is love, indeed, herein is love. 

Susie M. Best 



LOVE seeketh not itself to please, 
Nor for itself hath any care, 
But for another gives its ease, 
And builds a heaven in hell's despair. 

William Blake 



A QUESTION 

MY heart, I will put thee a question, 
Say, what is love, I entreat? 
Two souls with one thought between them, 
Two hearts with a single beat. 

And say whence love comes hither? 

Here he is, we know, that is all. 
When he goes tell me how and whither ? 

If he goes, 't was not love at all. 

And what love loves most purely ? 

The love that has no self quest. 
And where is the deepest loving 

Where love is silentest. 

12 



And when is love at its richest? 
When most it has given away. 
And what is the tongue love useth ? 
The love that it cannot say. 

H. I. D. Ryder 
From the German of Halm 



A WOMAN'S SHORTCOMINGS 

SHE has laughed as softly as if she sighed ! 
She has counted six and over. 
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried, — 

Oh, each a worthy lover ! 
They "give her time; " for her soul must slip 

Where the world has set the grooving ; 
She will lie to none with her fair red lip, — 
But love seeks truer loving. 

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, 

As her thoughts were beyond recalling ; 
With a glance for one and a glance for some. 

From her eyelids rising and falling, 
— Speaks common words with a blushful air; 

— Hears bold words, unreproving ! 
But her silence says, — what she never will swear, 

And love seeks better loving. 

Go, lady ! lean to the night-guitar, 

And drop a smile to the bringer; 
Then smile as sweetly, when he is far, 

At the voice of an in-door singer ; 

13 



Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes ; 

Glance lightly, on their removing, 
And join new vows to old perjuries, — 

But dare not call it loving ! 

Unless you can think, when the song is done, 

No other is soft in the rhythm ; 
Unless you can feel, when left by One 

That all men else go with him ; 
Unless you can know when upraised by his breath 

That your beauty itself wants proving ; 
Unless you can swear — " For life, for death ! " 

Oh, fear to call it loving ! 

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day, 

On the absent face that fixed you ; 
Unless you can love, as the angels may, 

With the breadth of heaven betwixt you ; 
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, 

Though behooving and unbehooving ; 
Unless you can die when the dream is past, — 

Oh, never call it loving. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



/And love? — 

What was love, then? not calm, not secure, 

scarcely kind, — 
But in one all intensest emotions combined; 
Life and death : pain and rapture. 

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton 
(Owen Meredith) 



FROM "ALICE OF MONMOUTH" 

LOVE from that summer morn 
Melting the souls of these two; 
Love which some of you know 
Who read this poem to-day — 
Is it the same desire, 
The strong ineffable joy, 
Which Jacob and Rachel felt, 
When he served her father long years, 
And the years were swift as days, — 
So great was the love he bore ? 
Race advancing with time, 
Growing in thought and deed, 
Mastering land and sea. 
Say, does the heart advance, 
Are its passions more pure and strong? 
They, like Nature, remain 
No more and no less than of yore. 
Whoso conquers the earth, 
Winning its riches and fame, 
Comes to the evening at last, 
The sunset of threescore years. 
Confessing that love was real, 
All the rest was a dream ! 
The sum of his gains is dross ; 
The song in his praise is mute ; 
The wreath of his laurels fades ; 
But the kiss of his early love 
Still burns on his trembling lips, 
The spirit of one he loved 

15 



Hallows his dreams at night. 
A little while and the scenes 
Of the play of life are closed ; 
Come let us rest an hour, 
And by the pleasant streams, 
Under the fresh, green trees, 
Let us walk hand in hand, 
And think of the days that were. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 



i6 



11, 



A^o life is so strong and complete, 

Biit it yearns for the smile of a f'iend. 

Wallace Bruce 

He was a friend indeed. 
With all afriend'^s best virtues shining bright; 

It was no broken reed 
You lea^ied on, when you trusted to his might. 

William Hunter Brickhead 



A FRIEND 

LIFE offers no joy like a friend; 
Fulfilment and prophecy blend 
In the throb of a heart with its own, — 
A heart where we know and are known. 

Yet more than thy friend unto thee, 
Is the friendship hereafter to be. 
When the flower of thy life shall unfold 
Out of hindering, and darkness, and cold. 

Love mocks thee, whose mounting desire 
Doth not to the Perfect aspire ; 
Nor lovest thou the soul thou wouldst win 
To shut with thine emptiness in. 

A friend ! Deep is calling to deep ! 
A friend ! the heart wakes from its sleep 
To behold the world lit by one face ; 
With one heavenward step to keep pace. 

O heart wherein all hearts are known, 
Whose infinite throb stirs our own ! 
O Friend beyond friends ! what are we, 
Who ask so much less, yet have Thee ? 

Lucy Larcom 



19 



WE LOVE BUT FEW 



OH, yes, we mean all kind words that we say 
To old friends and to new ; 
Yet doth this truth grow clearer day by day : 
We love but few. 



We love ! we love ! What easy words to say 

And sweet to hear, 
When sunrise splendor brightens all the way, 

And, far and near, 

Are breath of flowers and carolling of birds, 

And bells that chime. 
Our hearts are light : we do not weigh our words 

At morning time ! 

But when the matin music all is hushed. 

And life's great load 
Doth weigh us down, and thick with dust 

Doth grow the road, 

Then do we say less often that we love. 

The words have grown ! 
With pleading eyes we look to Christ above 

And clasp our own. 

Their lives are bound to ours by mighty bands 

No mortal strait, 
Nor Death himself, with his prevailing hands, 

Can separate. 

20 



The world is wide, and many friends are dear, 

And friendships true ; 
Yet do these words read plainer year by year: 

We love but few. 



THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP 

SHE gathered at her slender waist 
The beauteous robe she wore; 
Its folds a golden belt embraced ; 
One rose-hued gem it bore. 

The girdle shrank ; its lessening round 

Still kept the shining gem, 
But now her flowing locks it bound, 

A lustrous diadem. 

And narrower still the circlet grew. 

Behold ! a glittering band, 
Its roseate diamond set anew, 

Her neck's white column spanned. 

Suns rise and set ; the straining clasp 

The shortened links resist. 
Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp 

The diamond on her wrist. 

At length, the round of changes past 
The thieving years could bring. 

The jewel, glittering to the last, 
Still sparkles in a ring. 

21 



So link by link our friendships part. 

So loosen, break, and fall, 
A narrowing zone ; the loving heart 

Lives changeless through them all. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 



FRIENDSHIP 

DEAR friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be 
proving 
Thy strong regard for me, 
Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving ; 
Let thy faith speak for thee. 

Swear not to me that nothing can divide us, 

So little such oaths mean, 
But when distrust and envy creep beside us. 

Let them not come between. 

Say not to me the depths of thy devotion 

Are deeper than the sea ; 
But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion 

Embitter them for me. 

Vow not to love me ever and forever, 

Words are such idle things. 
But when we differ in opinions, never 

Hurt me by little stings. 

22 



I 'm sick of words, they are so lightly spoken, 

And spoken are but air. 
I 'd rather feel thy trust in me unbroken 

Than list to thy words so fair. 

If all the little proofs of trust are heeded, 

If thou art always kind. 
No sacrifice, no promise will be needed 

To satisfy my mind. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 



O NEAR ONES, DEAR ONES 

ONEAR ones, dear ones ! you, in whose right 
hands 
Our own rests calm ; whose faithful hearts all day 
Wide open wait till back from distant lands 

Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward 
way ! 

Helpmates and hearthmates, gladdeners of gone years, 
Tender companions of our serious days, 

Who color with your kisses, smiles, and tears, 
Life's warm web woven over wonted ways. 

Young children, and old neighbors, and old friends, 
Old servants, — you, whose smiling circle small 

Grows slowly smaller, till at last it ends 
Where in one grave is room enough for all ; 

23 



Oh, shut the world out from the heart you cheer ! 

Though small the circle of your smiles may be, 

The world is distant, and your smiles are near; 

This makes you more than all the world to me. 

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton 

(Owen Meredith) 



A TRIBUTE 

NOT many friends my life has made ; 
Few have I loved, and few are they 
Who in my hand their hearts have laid ; 
And these were women. I am gray, 
But never have I been betrayed. 



These words — this tribute — for the sake 
Of truth to God and woman-kind! 

These — that my heart may cease to ache 
With love and gratitude confined, 

And burning from my lips to break ! 



These — to that sisterhood of grace 
That numbers in its sacred list 

My mother risen to her place ; 

My wife, but yester-morning kissed 

And folded in Love's last embrace ! 
24 



This tribute of a love profound 
As ever moved the heart of man, 

To those to whom my life is bound, 
To her in whom my life began ; 

And her whose love my life hath crowned. 

Immortal Love ! thou still hast wings 
To lift me to those radiant fields, 

Where music waits with trembling strings 
And verse her happy numbers yields 

And all the soul within me sings. 

So from the lovely Pagan dream 
I call no more the Tuneful Nine ; 

For Woman is my Muse Supreme, 
And she, with fire and flight divine. 

Shall light and lead me to my theme. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland 



MY KATE 



SHE was not as pretty as women I know. 
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow 
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden 

ways, 
While she's still remembered on warm and cold 
days, — 

My Kate. 
25 



Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace ; 
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face ; 
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, 
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth, — 

My Kate. 

III. 
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, 
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke ; 
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, 
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone, — 

My Kate. 

IV. 

I doubt if she said to you much that could act 
As a thought or suggestion, she did not attract 
In the sense of the brilliant or wise; I infer 
'T was her thinking of others made you think of 
her, — 

My Kate. 



She never found fault with you, never implied 
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side 
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town 
The children were gladder who pulled at her gown, — 

My Kate. 

VI. 

None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall ; 
They knelt more to God than they used, — that was 
all: 

26 



If you praised her as charming, some asked what you 

meant, 
But the charm of her presence was felt when she 

went, — 

My Kate. 

VII. 

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, 
She took as she found them, and did them all good; 
It always was so with her, — see what you have ! 
She has made the grass greener even here, — with 
her grave, — 

My Kate. 

VIII. 

My dear one ! — when thou wast alive with the rest, 
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best ; 
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part, 
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart, — 

My Kate. 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



27 



III. 



Pour out thy love like the rtish of a river 
Wasting its waters forever and ever; 
Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver; 

Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea. 
Scatter thy life as the stimmer shower's pouring I 
What if no bird through the pearl-rain is soaring ? 
What if no blossom looks upward adoring ? 

Look to the life that was lavished for thee ! 

Rose Terry Cooke 



FROM "THE MESSAGE OF AN (EOLIAN 
HARP" 

IVe Cannot Love too Much. 



"W: 



ELL for him 
That he has such a heart to meet his own, 
And well for you ; for 't is a blessed gift, 
Not shared by all ahke, — the power to love; 
And not less blessed for proportioned pain, 
Its fiery seal, its royal crown of thorns." 

" So seems it, Beatrice, to you, who find 
No lurking danger in its concentration 
Because you have so many near and dear. 
Not so to me. I tremble when I think 
How much I love him ; but I turn away 
From thinking of it, just to love him more; — 
Indeed, I fear, too much," 

" Dear Eleanor, — 
Do you love him as much as Christ loves us ? 
Let your lips answer me." 

" Why ask me, dear ? 
Our hearts are finite, Christ is infinite." 

" Then till you reach the standard of that love, 
Let neither fears nor well-meant warning voice 
Distress you with ' Too much.' For He hath said — 
I/oTV much — and who shall dare to change His 
measure ? " 

" T/ia^ ye should love as I have loved you.^'^ 
Oh, sweet command, that goes so far beyond 
The mightiest impulse of the tender heart ! 
A bare permission had been much ; but He 

31 



Who knows our yearnings and our fearfulness, 

Chose graciously to bid us do the thing 

That makes our earthly happiness, and set 

A limit that we need not fear to pass, 

Because we cannot. Oh, the breadth and length 

And depth and height of love that passeth knowledge ! 

Yet Jesus said, " As I have loved you." 

" O Beatrice, I long to feel the sunshine 
That this should bring; but there are other words 
Which fall in chill eclipse. 'T is written, ' Keep 
Yourselves from idols.' How shall I obey? " 

" Dear, not by loving less, but loving more. 
It is not that we love our precious ones 
Too much, but God too little. As the lamp 
A miner bears upon his shadowed brow. 
Is only dazzling in the grimy dark, 
And has no glare against the summer sky, 
So, set the tiny torch of our best love 
In the great sunshine of the Love of God, 
And, though full-fed and fanned, it casts no shade 
And dazzles not, o'erflowed with mightier light ! " 

Frances Ridley Havergal 



LEARN that to love is the one way to know 
Or God or man : it is not love received 
That maketh man to know the inner life 
Of them that love him ; his own love bestowed 
Shall do it. 

Jean Ingelow 

32 



LOVE MUCH 

LOVE much. Earth has enough of bitter in it; 
Cast sweets into its cup whene'er you can. 
No heart so hard but love at last may win it. 
Love is the grand primeval cause of man; 
All hate is foreign to the first great plan. 

Love much. Your heart will be led out to slaughter 
On altars built of envy and deceit. 

Love on, love on. 'T is bread upon the water; 
It shall be cast in loaves yet at your feet, 
Unleavened manna, most divinely sweet. 

Love much. Your faith will be dethroned and shaken. 
Your trust betrayed by many a fair, false lure. 

Remount your faith, and let new trusts awaken. 

Though clouds obscure them, yet the stars are pure ; 
Love is a vital force, and must endure. 

Love much. Men's souls contract with cold sus- 
picion ; 

Shine on them with warm love, and they expand. 
'T is love, not creeds, that from a low condition 

Leads mankind up to heights supreme and grand. 

Oh, that the world would see and understand ! 

Love much. There is no waste in freely giving; 

More blessed it is, even, than to receive. 
He who loves much, -alone finds live worth living; 
Love on through doubt and darkness, and believe 
There is no thing which love may not achieve. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
3 33 



SONNET 

Or puoi la quantitate, 
Comprender de I'amor che a te mi scalda. — Dante. 

Non vo' che da tal nodo amor mi scioglia. — Petrarca. 

TRUST me, I have not earned your dear rebuke : 
I love, as you would have me, God the most ; 
Would love not you, but Him, must one be lost. 
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look, 
Unready to forego what I forsook. 

This say I, having counted up the cost ; 
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host ; 
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook. 
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem 
That I can never love you overmuch ; 

I love Him more, so let me love you too. 
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such 
I cannot love you if I love not Him, 

I cannot love Him if I love not you. 

Christina G. Rossetti 



GO FORTH IN LIFE NOT SEEKING LOVE 

GO forth in life, O friend, not seeking love ; 
A mendicant that with imploring eye 
And outstretched hand asks of the passers-by 
The alms his strong necessities may move. 

34 



For such poor love, to pity near allied, 

Thy generous spirit may not stoop and wait, 
A suppliant, whose prayer may be denied, 

Like a spurned beggar's at a palace gate ; 
But thy heart's affluence, lavish, uncontrolled, 

The largess of thy love, give full and free, 
As monarchs in their progress scatter gold ; 

And be thy heart like the exhaustless sea. 
That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow. 
Though tributary streams or ebb or flow, 

Anne C. Lynch 



LOVE'S FULFILLING 



O 



H, Love is weak 
Which counts the answers and the gains, 
Weighs all the losses and the pains. 
And eagerly each fond word drains, 
A joy to seek. 

When Love is strong, 
It never tarries to take heed, 
Or know if its return exceed 
Its gift; in its sweet haste no greed, 

No strifes belong. 

It hardly asks 
If it be loved at all ; to take 
So barren seems, when it can make 
Such bliss for the beloved sake, 

Oh, bitter tasks ! 

35 



Its ecstasy 
Could find hard death so beauteous, 
It sees through tears how Christ loved us, 
And speaks, in saying, " I love thus," 

No blasphemy. 

So much we miss 
If Love is weak ; so much we gain 
If Love is strong: God thinks no pain 
Too sharp or lasting to ordain 

To teach us this. 

Helen Hunt Jackson 



WHAT SHALL I DO FOR MY LOVE? 

WHAT shall I do for my love, 
Who is so tender 
And dear and true, 
Loving and true and tender, 
My strength and my defender — 
What shall I do ? 

I will cleave unto my love, 

Who am too lowly 

For him to take. 

With a self-surrender holy 

I will cleave unto him solely, 

I will give my being wholly 

For his dear sake. 

Lewis Morris 

36 



OH, IF THOU BE'ST TRUE LOVER 

OH, if thou be'st true lover, wash not hand 
From that dear stain of Love ! from worldly 
brand 
Of wealth and self-love wash it ! At the last 
Those win who, spite of Fortune's tempests, stand, 

Glad to wreck all for Love. I say to thee — 
I, Sadi — launch not on that boundless Sea ! 

But if thou puttest forth, hoist sail, quit anchor. 
To storm and wave trust thyself hardily! 

Edwin Arnold 



FROM "THE CASTLE IN THE AIR" 

I LIVE for Love, for Love alone, and who 
Dare chide me for it ? Who dare call it folly? 
It is a holy thing, if aught is holy. 
And true, indeed, if Truth herself is true : 
Earth yearns for earth, — its sensuous life is dear; 
Mortals should love mortality while here, 
And seize the glowing hours before they fly; 
And eyes should answer eyes, and lips should meet. 
And hearts unlocked to kindred hearts should beat, 
Till all that live on earth in love should live and die. 
Richard Henry Stoddard 
37 



THE SEA-SHELL 

« T ISTEN, darling, and tell me 

-■ — ' What the murmurer says to thee, 
Murmuring 'twixt a song and a moan, 
Chansins neither tune nor tone." 



" Yes, I hear it, — far and faint, 
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint; 
Like the falling of sleep on a weary brain, 
When the fevered heart is quiet again." 



" By smiling lips and fixed eye, 
You are hearing more than song or sigh; 
The wrinkled thing has curious ways — 
I want to know what words it says." 



" I hear a wind on a boatless main 
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain ; 
On the dreaming waters dreams the moon. 
But I hear no words in the murmured tune." 



" If it does not say that I love thee well, 
'T is a senseless, ill-curved, worn-out shell ; 
If it is not of love, why sigh or sing ? 
'T is a common, mechanical, useless thing." 

38 



" It whispers of love — 'tis a prophet shell — 
Of a peace that comes and all shall be well; 
It speaks not a word of your love to me, 
But it tells me to love you eternally." 

George MacDonald 



GIVE all to love ; 
Obey thy heart; 
Friends, kindred, days, 
Estate, good-fame, 
Plans, credit, and the Muse, 



Nothing refuse. 



Ralph Waldo Emerson 



39 



IV. 



Am I not the nobler through thy love f 
Or three times less unworthy ? 

Alfred Tennyson 

If aught can make me seek 

Other to be than that lost sotil, I fear me, 

It is that thou lov^st me j Heaven were not Heaveji 

Without thee. 

Philip James Bailey 



SOFTLY THE EVENING SHADOWS 

SOFTLY the evening shadows 
Kiss the trailing robes of day; 
And clustering round the roses 
At my feet, they seem to say, 
As the meadows lose their being, 

And the lengthened shadows wane : 
" Have you done your every duty 
Pour I'amour de Madeleine? 

" Are you nobler, stronger, better. 

Than you were when early dawn 
Blazoned all the day with splendor 

At the advent of the morn ? 
Have you sought with manly courage 

Some far distant height to gain? 
Are your aspirations higher 

Pour I'amour de Madeleine ? " 

Daniel Chauncey Brewer 



SOME LOVER'S DEAR THOUGHT 

I OUGHT to be kinder always, 
For the light of his kindly eyes ; 
I ought to be wiser always, 

Because he is so just and wise; 
And gentler in all my bearing, 
And braver in all my daring. 

For the patience that in him lies. 
43 



I must be as true as the Heaven, 

While he is as true as the day, 
Nor balance the gift with the given, 

For he giveth to me alway. 
And I must be firm and steady. 
For my Love, he is that already, 

And I follow him as I may. 

O dear little golden fetter. 

You bind me to difficult things ; 
But my soul, while it strives, grows better, 

And I feel the stirring of wings 
As I stumble, doubting and dreading, 
Up the path of his stronger treading, 
Intent on his beckonings. 

Sarah Woolsey 

(Susan Coolidge) 



A FACE 

I WANDERED through the night alone; 
A face from out the darkness shone, 
A garnered flame of beauty given 
To guide a blinded soul to Heaven. 

O lovely face, with ray divine, 
Forever on my pathway shine ; 
Where'er my wayward footsteps roam, 
Be thou my star, my faith, my home ! 

William T. Washburn 
44 



FROM "THE MISTRESS OF THE MANSE 

HIS love enwrapped her as a robe, 
Which seemed by its supernal charm 
To shield from every poisoned probe 

Of earthly pain and earthly harm 
This one choice creature of the globe. 

The love he bore her lifted him 

Into a bright, sweet atmosphere 
That filled with beauty to the brim 

The world beneath him, far and near, 
And stained the clouds that draped its rim. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland 



TO HARRIETT 

HERE at the halfway House of Life I linger, 
Worn with the way, a weary-hearted singer, 
Resting a little space ; 
And lo ! the good God sends me, as a token 
Of peace and blessing (else my heart were broken), 
The sunbeam of thy face. 

My fear falls from me like a garment ; slowly 
New strength returns upon me, calm and holy ; 

I kneel, and I atone — 
Thy hand is clasped in mine — we lean together — 
Henceforward, through the sad or shining weather, 
1 shall not walk alone. 

Robert Buchanan 
45 



FROM "THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE" 



T 



HEN to my room 

I went, and closed and lock'd the door, 
And cast myself down on my bed ; 

And there, with many a blissful tear, 
I vow'd to love, and pray'd to wed 

The maiden who had grown so dear; 
Thank'd God who had set her in my path, 

And promised as I hoped to win, 
I never would sully my faith 

By the least selfishness or sin; 
Whatever in her sight I 'd seem, 

I 'd really be ; I 'd never blend 
With my delight in her a dream 

'T would change her cheek to comprehend ; 
And, if she wished it, I 'd prefer 

Another's to my own success ; 
And always seek the best for her 

With unofficious tenderness. 

Rising, I breathed a brighter clime. 

And found myself all self above. 
And, with a charity sublime. 

Contemned not those who did not love; 
And I could not but feel that then 

I shone with something of her grace, 
And went forth to my fellow-men 

My commendation in my face. 

Coventry Patmore 
46 



FRIENDSHIP 

A RUDDY drop of manly blood 
The surging sea outweighs, 
The world uncertain comes and goes, 
The lover rooted stays. 
I fancied he was fled, — 
And, after many a year. 
Glowed unexhausted kindliness, 
Like daily sunrise there. 
My careful heart was free again; 
O friend, my bosom said, 
Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
Through thee the rose is red; 
All things through thee take nobler form, 
And look beyond the earth. 
The mill-round of our fate appears 
A sun-path in thy worth. 
Me, too, thy nobleness has taught 
To master my despair ; 
The fountains of my hidden life 
Are through thy friendship fair. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 



GOD measures souls by their capacity 
For entertaining his best angel. Love. 
Who loveth most is nearest kin to God, 
Who is all Love or nothing. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 



47 



HAPPY ARE THEY WHO KISS THEE 

HAPPY are they who kiss thee, morn and even, 
Parting the hair upon thy forehead white ; 
For them the sky is bluer and more bright, 
And purer their thanksgivings rise to Heaven. 
Happy are they to whom thy songs are given ; 
Happy are they on whom thy hands alight; 
And happiest they for whom thy prayers at night 
In tender pity so oft have striven. 
Away with vain regrets and selfish sighs — 
Even I, dear friend, am lonely, not unblest; 
Permitted sometimes on that form to gaze. 
Or feel the light of those consoling eyes ; 
If but a moment on my cheek it stays, 
I know that gentle beam from all the rest ! 

Aubrey De Vere 



LOVE, THE MUSICIAN 

LOVE is the minstrel ; for in God's own sight, 
Tlie master of all melody he stands, 
And holds a golden rebeck in his hands, 
And leads the chorus of the saints in light; 
But ever and anon those chambers bright 
Detain him not, for down to these low lands 
He flies, and spreads his musical commands, 
And teaches men some fresh, divine delight. 
48 



For with his bow he strikes a single chord 
Across a soul, and wakes in it desire 
To grow more pure and lovely, and aspire 
To that ethereal country where, outpoured 
From myriad stars that stand before the Lord, 
Love's harmonies are like a flame of fire. 

Edmund W. Gosse 
Italian of Frajicesco Redi 



A FRIENDSHIP 

SMALL fellowship of daily commonplace 
We hold together, dear, constrained to go 
Diverging ways. Yet day by day I know 
My life is sweeter for thy life's sweet grace ; 
And if we meet but for a moment's space, 

Thy touch, thy word, sets all the world aglow. 
Faith soars serener, haunting doubts shrink low 
Abashed before the sunshine of thy face. 
Nor press of crowd, nor waste of distance serves 
To part us. Every hush of evening brings 
Some hint of thee, true-hearted friend of mine ; 
And as the farther planet thrills and swerves 

When toward it through the darkness Saturn swings, 
Even so my spirit feels the spell of thine. 

Sophie Jewett 
(Ellen Burroughs) 



I 



REMEMBER the only wise thing I ever did, 
The only good, was to love thee. 

Philip James Bailey 
4 49 



IN THE AIR 

THE scent of a blossom from Eden! 
The flower was not given to me, 
But it freshened my spirit forever, 
As it passed, on its way to thee ! 

In my soul is a lingering music : 

The song was not meant for me, 
But I listen, and listen, and wonder 

To whom it can lovelier be. 

The sounds and the scents that float by us — 
They cannot tell whither they go ; 

Yet however it fails of its errand, 

Love makes the world sweeter, I know. 

I know that love never is wasted, 
Nor truth, nor the breath of a prayer ; 

And the thought that goes forth as a blessing 
Must live, as a joy in the air. 

Lucy Larcom 



ALL true deep feeling purifies the heart; 
Am I not better by my love for you .'' 
At least I am less selfish ; I would give 
My life to buy you happiness ! 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 
50 



SONNET 

IF it be true that any beauteous thing 
Raises the pure and just desires of man 
From earth to God, the eternal Fount of all, 
Such I believe my love : for as in her 
So fair, in whom I all beside forget, 
I view the gentle work of her Creator, 
I have no care for any other thing, 
Whilst thus I love. Nor is it marvellous, 
Since the effect is not of my own power, 
If the soul doth, by nature tempted forth. 
Enamoured through the eyes, 
Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth, 
And through them riseth to the primal love, 
As to its end, and honors in admiring: 
For who adores his Maker must needs love his work. 
William Wordsworth 
Italian of Michael Angela 



GOING TO CHURCH 

HER soft voice, singularly heard, 
Beside me in the Psalms, withstood 
The roar of voices, like a bird 

Sole warbling in a windy wood : 
And when we knelt, she seemed to be 

An angel teaching me to pray ; 
And all through the high Liturgy 
My spirit rejoiced without allay, 

51 



Being for once borne clearly above 

All banks and bars of ignorance, 
By this bright springtide of pure love, 

And floated in a free expanse. 
Whence it could see from side to side, 

The obscurity from every part 
Winnow'd away and purified 

By the vibrations of my heart. 

Coventry Patmore 



WITH my love this knowledge too was given, 
Which each calm day doth strengthen more 
and more, 
That they who love are but one step from Heaven. 

James Russell Lowell 



52 



V. 



1 7neet her on the dusty street, 
And daisies spring about her feet; 
Or, touched to life beneath her tread, 
An English cowslip lifts its head. 

Henry Timrod 

I loved thee for that dear, deep loving ness 
Resting within thy tender, brooding eyes; 
I loved thee for thy wealth of womanhood, 
Thy quiet guestio?iitigs, thy sweet replies, 
Thy patie?it brows that knew no bitter mood. 

George Francis Armstrong 



CALAIS SANDS 
A THOUSAND knights have reined their steeds 
A To watch this line of sand hills run 
Along the never silent Strait, 
To Calais glittering in the sun. 

To look toward Ardres' Golden Field 
Across this wide aerial plain, 
Which glows as if the Middle Age 
Were gorgeous upon earth again. 

Oh, that to share this famous scene 

I saw, upon the open sand, 

Thy lovely presence at my side, 

Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand ! 

How exquisite thy voice would come, 
My darling, on this lonely air! 
How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze _ 
Shake loose some locks of soft brown hair! 

But now my glance but once hath roved 
O'er Calais and its famous plain; 
To England's chffs my gaze is turned. 
O'er the blue Strait mine eyes I strain. 

Thou comest ! Yes, the vessels' cloud 
Hangs dark upon the rolling sea ! — 
Oh, that yon sea-bird's wings were mine, 
To' win one instant's glimpse from thee! 
55 



I must not spring to grasp thy hand, 
To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye ; 
But I may stand far off, and gaze. 
And watch thee pass unconscious by, 

And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, 
Mixed with the idlers on the pier, — 
Ah, might I always rest unseen, 
So I might have thee always near ! 

To-morrow hurry through the fields 
Of Flanders to the storied Rhine ! 
To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close 
Beneath one roof, my queen ! with mine. 

Matthew Arnold 



TYING HER BONNET UNDER HER CHIN 

'TRYING her bonnet under her chin, 
•^ She tied her raven ringlets in ; 
But not alone in the silken snare 
Did she catch her lovely floating hair. 
For, tying her bonnet under her chin. 
She tied a young man's heart within. 

They w^ere strolling together up the hill, 

Where the wind comes blowing merry and chill ; 

And it blew the curls a frolicsome race 

All over the happy peach-colored face. 

Till, scolding and laughing, she tied them in, 

Under her beautiful, dimpled chin. 

56 



And it blew a color, bright as the bloom 
Of the pinkest fuchsia's tossing plume, 
All over the cheeks of the prettiest girl 
That ever imprisoned a romping curl, 
Or, tying her bonnet under her chin, 
Tied a young man's heart within. 

Steeper and steeper grew the hill ; 
Madder, merrier, chillier, still 
The western wind blew down and played 
The wildest tricks with the little maid, 
As, tying her bonnet under her chin, 
She tied a young man's heart within. 

O western wind, do you think it was fair 

To play such tricks with the floating hair? 

To gladly, gleefully, do your best 

To blow her against the young man's breast, 

Where he as gladly folded her in. 

And kissed her mouth and dimpled chin ? 

Ah ! Ellery Vane, you little thought 
An hour ago, when you besought 
This country lass to walk with you, 
After the sun had dried the dew, 
What perilous danger you 'd be in 
As she tied her bonnet under her chin. 

Nora Perry 



57 



LOVE ON DECK 

" T NEVER loved you much," she said, 

-■- " But I wanted to pass the time. 
The hours pass slow on a ship, you know, 

In a lazy, tropical chme. 
Have I hurt you much ? Forgive me, then, 

If I own that I was wrong. 
Cure the smart, and heal your heart, 
By writing it all in a song." 

The waves flowed free, and the waves flowed 

wide. 
As they sat and whispered side by side. 



" I never cared much for you," he said, 
" But I wanted a subject fit. 
V I 'd verses to make, and I thought I could take 
^- Your heart and model from it. 
Have I pained you much? Forgive me, dear. 

A ship is a dreary place ; 
It is wrong to flirt, but you are n't much hurt, 
And you have a lovely face ! " 
The waves flowed free, and the waves flowed 

strong. 
And the good ship bore them both along. 

Each looked at each. They did not smile : 

The tears were in cither's eyes. 
And the cliffs of England rose the while 

From the waves, a white surprise. 

58 



Hand sought for hand, — *' Shall we gravel}^ end 

What first was a freak of the heart ? 
Shall we meet once more on the English shore, 
But this time never to part ? " 

The cliffs rose white from the sunny seas, 
And church-bells sounded on the breeze. 

George Barlow 



A RED, RED ROSE 

OH, my luve 's hke a red, red rose, 
That 's newly sprung in June : 
Oh, my luve 's like the melodie 
That's sweetly played in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass. 

So deep in luve am I ; 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt in the sun, 

I will luve thee still, my dear. 
While the sands o' Hfe shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve ! 

And fare thee weel awhile! 
And I will come again, my luve, 
Though it were ten thousand mile. 

Robert Burns 
59 



IN A GONDOLA 

I. 

'r-p WAS night in Venice. Then down to the tide, 

-L Where a tall and shadowy gondolier 
Leaned on his oar, like a lifted spear : — 
'T was night in Venice. Then side by side 
We sat in his boat. Then oar a-trip 
On the black boat's keel, then dip and dip : — 
These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 
For we were together and side by side. 

II. 
The sea it was level as seas of light, 
As still as the light ere a hand was laid 
To the making of lands, or the seas were made. 
'T was fond as a bride on her bridal night. 
When a great love swells in her soul like a sea, 
And makes her but less than divinity. 
'T was night, — the soul of the day I wis : 
A woman's face hiding from her first kiss. 

III. 

'T was night in Venice. On o'er the tide — 
These boats they are narrow as they can be ; 
These crafts they are narrow enough, and we, 
To balance the boat, sat side by side — 
Out under the arch of the Bridge of Sighs, 
On under the arch of the star-sown skies; 
We two were together on the Adrian Sea, — 
The one fair woman of the world to me. 
60 



IV. 

These narrow-built boats, they rock when at sea, 

And they make one afraid. So she leaned to me ; 

And that is the reason alone there fell 

Such golden folds of abundant hair 

Down over my shoulder, as we sat there. 

These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 

Wider for lovers : as wide — ah, well ! 

But who is the rascal to kiss and tell ? 

Joaquin Miller 



A NICE CORRESPONDENT 

THE glow and the glory are plighted 
To darkness, for evening is come ; 
The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted, 

The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb. 
I 'm alone, for the others have flitted 

To dine with a neighbor at Kew ; 
Alone, but I 'm not to be pitied, — 
I 'm thinking of you ! 

I wish you were here ! Were I duller 

Than dull, you 'd be dearer than dear ; 
I 'm drest in your favorite color, — 

Dear Fred, how I wish you were here ! 
I 'm wearing my lazuli necklace, 

The necklace you fasten'd askew; 
Was there ever so rude or so reckless 

A darling as you ? 

6i 



I want you to come and pass sentence 

On two or three books with a plot : 
Of course you know " Janet's Repentance " ? 

I 'm reading Sir Waverley Scott. 
That story of Edgar and Lucy, 

How thrilling, romantic, and true ! 
The Master (his bride was a goosey!) 

Reminds me of you. 

They tell me Cockaigne has been crowning 

A Poet whose garland endures ; 
It was you that first told me of Browning, — 

That stupid old Browning of yours ! 
His vogue and his verve are alarming, 

I 'm anxious to give him his due, 
But, Fred, he 's not nearly so charming 

A poet as you ! 

I heard how you shot at The Beeches 

I saw how you rode Chanticleer, 
I have read the report of your speeches. 

And echoed the echoing cheer. 
There 's a whisper of hearts you are breaking. 

Dear Fred, I believe it, I do ! 
Small marvel that Folly is making 

Her idol of you. 

Alas for the world, and its dearly 
Bought triumph, its fugitive bliss ; 

Sometimes I half wish I were merely 
A plain or a penniless miss ; 
62 



But, perhaps, one is blest with "a measure 

Of pelf," and I 'm not sorry, too, 
That I 'm pretty, because 't is a pleasure, 

My dearest, to you! 

Your whim is for frolic and fashion, 

Your taste is for letters and art: — 
This rhyme is the commonplace passion 

That glows in a fond woman's heart ; 
Lay it by in some sacred deposit 

For relics, — we all have a few ! 
Love, some day they '11 print it, because it 

Was written to you. 

Frederick Locker 



THE CLOVER BLOSSOMS 

THE clover blossoms kiss her feet. 
She is so sweet, 
While I who may not kiss her hand 
Bless all the wild flowers in the land. 

Soft sunshine falls across her breast, 

She is so blest, 
I 'm jealous of its arms of gold ; 
Oh that these arms her form might fold ! 

Gently the breezes kiss her hair. 

She is so fair ! 
Let flowers and sun and breeze go by, 
O dearest ! Love me or I die. 

Oscar Laighton 
63 



ANNIE LAURIE 

MAXWELTON braes are bonnie 
Where early fa's the dew, 
And it 's there that Annie Laurie 
Gie'd me her promise true, — 
Gie'd me her promise true, 

Which ne'er forgot will be ; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 
I *d lay me doune and dee. 

Her brow is like the snaw-drift 

Her throat is like the swan; 
Her face it is the fairest 

That e'er the sun shone on, — 
That e'er the sun shone on, — 

And dark blue is her ee ; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I 'd lay me doune and dee. 

Like dew on the gowan lying 

Is the fa' o' her fairy feet ; 
And like winds in summer sighing 

Her voice is low and sweet — 
Her voice is low and sweet — 

And she 's a' the world to me ; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I 'd lay me doune and dee. 

Douglas 
64 



UNDER THE ROSE 

SHE wears a rose in her hair, 
At the twilight's dreamy close ; 
Her face is fair, how fair 
Under the rose ! 

I steal like a shadow there, 

As she sits in rapt repose, 
And whisper my loving prayer 

Under the rose ! 

She takes the rose from her hair, 
And her color comes and goes ; 

And I — a lover will dare 
Under the rose ! 

Richard Henry Stoddard 



A LOVE EXTRAVAGANZA 

GROW greener, grass, where the river flows 
Her feet have pressed you : 
Blow fresher, violet ! lily ! rose ! 

Her eyes have blessed you. 
Sing sweeter, birds upon the trees. 

Her ears have heard you : 
Sound up to heaven, ye harmonies ! 
Her hands have stirred you. 

Charles Mackay 
9 6s 



THE SMILE OF HER I LOVE 

THE smile of her I love is like the dawn 
Whose touch makes Memnon sing; 
Oh, see where wide the golden sunlight flows — 
The barren desert blossoms as the rose ! 

The smile of her I love — when that is gone, 
O'er all the world night spreads her shadowy wing. 
Richard Watson Gilder 



LOVE'S PRAYER 

IF Heaven would hear my prayer, 
My dearest wish would be. 
Thy sorrows not to share, 

But take them all on me; 
If Heaven would hear my prayer. 

I 'd beg with prayers and sighs 
That never a tear might flow 

From out thy lovely eyes. 
If Heaven might grant it so ; 

Mine be the tears and sighs. 

No cloud thy brow should cover, 
But smiles each other chase 

From lips to eyes all over 
Thy sweet and sunny face ; 

The clouds my heart should cover. 
66 



That all thy path be light 
Let darkness fall on me ; 

If all thy days be bright, 

Mine black as night could be; 

My love would light my night. 

For thou art more than life, 
And if our faith should set 

Life and my love at strife, 
How could I then forget 

1 love thee more than life ? 



John Hay 



LOVE 

I LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover, 
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate ; 
a Now if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover — 
Hush, nightingale, hush ! O sweet nightingale, wait 
Till I listen and hear 
If a step draweth near, 
For my love he is late ! 

«*The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer, 

A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree, 
The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer ; 
To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see ? 
Let the star-clusters grow. 
Let the sweet waters flow, 
And cross quickly to me. 
67 



" You night-moths that hover where honey brims over 

From sycamore blossoms, or settle or sleep ; 

You glow-worms, shine out and the pathway discover 

To him that comes darkling along the rough steep. 

Ah, my sailor, make haste, 

For the time runs to waste, 

And my love lieth deep — 

" Too deep for swift telling ; and yet, my one lover, 

I 've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night." 
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white 
clover, 
Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took 
flight; 

But I '11 love him more, more 
Than e'er wife loved before. 
Be the days dark or bright. 

Jean Ingelow 



THE cords of love must be strong as death 
Which hold and keep a heart. 
Not daisy-chains, that snap in the breeze. 
Or break with their weight apart. 

Phcebe Cary 



68 



VI. 



T love you. Words are small ; 
^Tis life speaks plain : In twenty years 
Perhaps you may '^now all. 

Dinah Maria Muloch Craik 



I LOVE YOU, DEAR 

" T LOVE you, dear ! " and saying this, 

JL My heart responds, " 'T is true ! 't is true 1 " 

And thrills with more than earthly bliss 
While still I say, " I love but you ! " 

"Why should I love you, dear?" you ask, 
As tho' true love could reason why ; 

If love could think, 't would be a task 
For me to love, and love would die. 

I love you just because I do, • 

The key I do not care to find. 
For fear the strands would break in two 

That me a willing captive bind. 

The fact is all I want to know, 

I will not grieve while that is given; 

To lose my love would be my woe ; 
To keep it as it is, is heaven. 

George W. Crofts 



" T 'M sorry that I spelt the word, 

•^ I hate to go above you. 
Because" — the brown eyes lower fell — 

" Because, you see, I love you! " 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



THE SWEETEST FLOWER THAT BLOWS 

THE sweetest flower that blows 
I give you as we part ; 
For you it is a rose ; 
For me it is my heart. 

The fragrance it exhales 

(Ah, if you only knew !)» 
Which but in dying fails, 

It is my love of you. 

The sweetest flower that grows 

I give you as we part ; 
You think it but a rose ; 

Ah, me ! it is my heart. 

Frederick Peterson 



I LOVE THEE 

I LOVE thee — I love thee ! 
'T is all that I can say ; 
It is my vision in the night, 
My dreaming in the day ; 
The very echo of my heart, 
The blessing when I pray. 
I love thee — I love thee ! 
Is all that I can say. 
72 



I love thee — I love thee ! 

Is ever on my tongue. 
In all my proudest poesy 

That chorus still is sung; 
It is the verdict of my eyes 

Amidst the gay and young : 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

A thousand maids among. 

I love thee — I love thee ! 

Thy bright and hazel glance, 
The mellow lute upon those lips, 

Whose tender tones entrance. 
But most dear heart of hearts, thy proofs. 

That still these words enhance ! 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

Whatever be thy chance. 

Thomas Hood 



SONG FROM A DRAMA 

I KNOW not if moonlight or starlight 
Be soft on the land and the sea, — 
I catch but the near light, the far light. 

Of eyes that are beaming for me; 
The scent of the night, of the roses, 

May burden the air for thee, Sweet, — 
'T is only the breath of thy sighing 
I know as I lie at thy feet. 

73 



The winds may be sobbing or singing, 

Their touch may be fervent or cold, 
The night bells may toll or be ringing, — 

I care not while thee I enfold ! 
The feast may go on, and the music 

Be scattered in ecstasy round, — 
Thy whisper, " I love thee ! 1 love thee ! '* 

Hath flooded my soul with its sound. 

I think not of time that is flying, 

How short is the hour I have won, 
How near is this living to dying, 

How the shadow still follows the sun ; 
There is naught upon earth, no desire 

Worth a thought, though 't were had by a sign ! , 
I love thee ! I love thee ! bring nigher 

Thy spirit, thy kisses, to mine. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE 

WHAT love do I bring you ? The earth 
Full of love were far lighter ; 
The great hollow sky full of love 
Something slighter. 

Earth full and heaven full were less 

Than the full measure given : 
Nay, say a heart full, — the heart 
Holds earth and heaven! 

Harriet Prescott Spofford 
74 



SONNET 

Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona. — Dante 
Amor m'addusse in si gioiosa spene. — Petrarca 

OMY heart's heart and you who are to me 
More than myself myself, God be with you, 

Keep you in strong obedience, leal and true 
To him whose noble service setteth free, 
Give you all good we see or can foresee, 

Make your joys many and your sorrows few, 

Bless you in what you bear and what you do, 
Yea, perfect you as He would have you be. 

So much for you; but what for me, dear friend? 

To love you without stint and all I can 
To-day, to-morrow, world without an end : 

To love you much, and yet to love you more, 

As Jordan at its flood sweeps either shore ; 
Since woman is the helpmeet made for man. 

Christina G. Rossetti 



BECAUSE 

IT is not because your heart is mine — mine only — 
Mine alone, 
It is not because you choose me weak and lonely 

For your own ; 
Not because the earth is fairer, and the skies 

Spread above you 
Are more radiant for the shining of your eyes — 
That I love you 1 

IS 



>/ 



Jt is not because the world's perplexed meaning 

Grows more clear ; 
And the Parapets of Heaven, with angels leaning, 

Seem more near ; 
And Nature sings of praise with all her voices 

Since yours spoke, 
Since within my silent heart, that now rejoices. 

Love awoke ! 



Nay, not even because your hand holds heart and life. 

At your will 
Soothing, hushing all its discord, making strife 

Calm and still ; 
Teaching Trust to fold her wings, nor ever roam 

From her nest ; 
Teaching Love that her securest, safest home 

Must be Rest. 



But because this human Love, though true and 
sweet, — 

Yours and mine, — 
Has been sent by Love more tender, more complete, 

More divine, 
That it leads our hearts to rest at last in Heaven, 

Far above you ; 
Do I take you as a gift that God has given — 

And I love you ! 

Adelaide Anne Procter 

76 



ONE FACE 

ONE face looks up from every page, 
From snowy cloud or tranquil sea ; 
One face that can all woes assuage, 
Dearer than all the world to me. 

The eyes are mild, the brow is fair; 

The voice is sweet as song of bird : 
How oft my hand upon the hair 

Has rested with no spoken word ! 

The years will come and go again ; 

Their joys and sorrows they will trace 
On lip, and brow, and busy brain, — 

And heaven will hold that one dear face. 

Sara K. Bolton 



T 



FROM "THE CUP OF YOUTH" 

CASPAR. 

ELL me again you love me. 



GELOSA. 

Small my need, 
'T is in my eyes ; 't is on my lips ; my heart 
Beats to this music all the long day through, 
I am like a bird that hath one only note 
For song, for prayer, for thanks, for everything. 



CASPAR. 

You cannot know how passing sweet it is 
To change the camp, the field, the storms of war 
For this and you : to watch the gray morn wane. 
And see the slumbrous sea leap here and there 
To silver dreams. 

GELOSA. 

The hand of time seems stayed, 
And joy to own the ever constant hours, 
So full of still assurance is the night. 
Love hath the quiet certainty of Heaven 
Rich with the promise of unchanging years. 

S. Weir Mitchell 



A LOVE SYMPHOxNY 

ALONG the garden ways just now 
I heard the flowers speak. 
The white rose told me of your brow, 

The red rose of your cheek ; 
The lily of your bended head. 
The bindweed of your hair ; 
Each looked his loveliest and said 
You were more fair. 

I went into the wood anon. 
And heard the wild birds sing 

How sweet you were ; they warbled on> 
Piped, trilled the self-same thing. 
78 



Thrush, blackbird, linnet without pause, 

The burden did repeat ; 
And still began again because 

You were more sweet. 

And then I went down to the sea, 

And heard it murmuring too 
Part of an ancient mystery. 

All made of me and you. 
How many a thousand years ago 

I loved, and you were sweet — 
Longer I could not stay, and so 

I fled back to your feet. 

Arthur O'Shaughnessy 



FROM "THE ANCESTRESS" 

I HAVE no hope that does not dream of thee ; 
I have no joy that is not shared by thee ; 
I have no fear that does not dread for thee. 
All that I once took pleasure in, — my lute 
Is only sweet when it repeats thy name ; 
My flowers — I only gather them for thee. 
The book drops listless down, — I cannot read. 
Unless it is to thee ; my lonely hours 
Are spent in shaping forth our future lives 
After my own romantic fantasies. 
He is the star round which my thoughts revolve 
Like satellites. 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 

79 



FOUR WORDS 

BELOVED, the briefest words are best; 
And all the fine euphonious ways 
In which the truth has been expressed 
Since Adam's early Eden days, 
Could never match-the simple phrase, — 
Sweetheart, I love you ! 

If I should say the world were blank 
Without your face ; if I should call 

The stars to witness, rank on rank. 
That I am true although they fall, — 
'T would mean but this, — and this means all,— 
Sweetheart, I love you ! 

And so, whatever change is wrought 
By time or fate, delight or dole. 

One single, happy, helpful thought 

Makes strong and calm my steady soul, 
And these sweet words contain the whole, — 
Sweetheart, I love you ! 

I will not wrong their truth to-day 

By wild, impassioned vows of faith, 
Since all that volumes could convey 
Is compassed thus in half a breath, 
Which holds and hallows life and death, — 
Sweetheart, I love 3'ou ! 

Elizabeth Akers Allen 
80 



URVASI 

TIS a story told by Kalidasa, — 
Hindoo poet, — in melodious rhyme, 
How, with train of maidens, young Urvasi 
Came to keep great Indra's festal time. 

'T was her part in worshipful confession 

Of the god-name on that sacred day, 
Walking flower-crowned in the long procession, 

I love Puru-shotta-ma, to say. 

Pure as snow on Himalayan ranges. 

Heaven-descended, soon to heaven withdrawn, 

Fairer than the moon-flower of the Ganges 
Was Urvasi, daughter of the Dawn. 

But it happened that the gentle maiden 
Loved one Puru-Avas, — fateful name ! — 

And her heart, with its sweet secret laden, 
Faltered when her time of utterance came. 

" I love " — then she stopped, and people wondered ; 

" I love " — she must guard her secret well ; 
Then from sweetest lips that ever blundered 

'* I love Puru-Avas," trembling fell. 

Oh what terror seized on poor Urvasi ! 

Misty grew the violets of her eyes, 
And her form bent like a broken daisy, 

While around her rose the mocking cries. 
8i 



But great Indra said, " The maid shall marry 
Him whose image in her faithful heart 

She so near to that of God doth carry, 

Scarce her lips can keep their names apart." 

Call it then not weakness or dissembling 
If, in striving the high name to reach, 

Through our voices runs the tender trembling 
Of an earthly name too dear for speech ! 

Ever dwells the lesser in the greater, 
In God's love the human ; we by these 

Know He holds love's simplest stammering sweeter 
Than cold praise of wordy Pharisees. 

Helen Barron Bostwick 



PROTESTATIONS 

IF the apple grow on the apple-tree, 
And the wild wind blow o'er the wild wood free, 
And the dark stream flow to the darker sea, 
And they all had ceased growing and blowing and 
flowing, 
I cannot help loving thee ! I cannot help loving 
thee ! 
As flows the dark blue stream to the deeper sea, 
I cannot help loving thee! I cannot help loving 
thee ! 

82 



Yet if wild winds blow never more on lea, 
And ne'er blossoms grow on the healthy tree, 
And the faithless stream flow not to the sea, 
And they all should cease blowing and growing and 
flowing, 
I '11 never cease loving thee ! I '11 never cease loving 
thee ! 
As flows the dark blue stream to the deeper sea, 
I '11 never cease loving thee ! I '11 never cease loving 
thee ! 

Charles Mackay 



FROM "THE SPANISH STUDENT" 

PRECIOSA. 

I LOVE thee as the good love heaven; 
But not that I am worthy of that heaven. 
How shall I more deserve it? 

VICTORIAN. 

Loving more. 

PRECIOSA. 

I cannot love thee more ; my heart is full. 

VICTORIAN. 

Then let it overflow, and I will drink it. 
As in the summer-time the thirsty sands 
Drink the swift waters of the Manzanares, 
And still do thirst for more. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
83 



BENEDICITE 

GOD'S love and peace be with thee, where 
Soe'er this soft autumnal air 
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair! 

Whether through city casements comes 
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, 
Or out among the woodland blooms, 

It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face. 
Imparting, in its glad embrace, 
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace ! 

Fair Nature's book together read, 

The old wood-paths that knew our tread, 

The maple shadows overhead, 

The hills we climbed, the river seen 
By gleams along its deep ravine, — 
All keep thy memory fresh and green. 

Where'er I look, where'er I stray. 
Thy thought goes with me on my way, 
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day; 

O'er lapse of time and change of scene, 
The weary waste which lies between 
Thyself and me, my heart I lean. 

84 



Thou lack'st not friendship's spell-word, nor 
The half unconscious power to draw 
All hearts to thine by love's sweet law. 

With these good gifts of God is cast 
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast 
To hold the blessed angels fast. 

If, then, a fervent wish for thee 

The gracious heavens will heed from me, 

What should, dear heart, its burden be ? 

The sighing of a shaken reed, — 
What can I more than meekly plead 
The greatness of our common need? 

God's love, — unchanging, pure, and true, — 
The paraclete white shining through 
His peace, — the fall of Hermon's dew ! 

With such a prayer on this sweet day. 
As thou mayest hear and I may say, 
I greet thee, dearest, far away ! 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



85 



VII. 



It has been such a day as thai, thou knoiuest, when 

first 
I said I loved thee ; that long, sunny day 
We passed upon the waters, — heeding naught, 
Seeing naught but each other. 

Philip James Bailey 

Not from the whole wide world I choose thee, — 
Sweetheart, light of the laftd and the sea 1 

The wide, wide world could ?iot eftclose thee, 
For thou art the whole wide world to me. 

Richard Watson Gilder 



o 



WHAT THE ROSE SAW 

THE ROSE. 

H, Lily sweet, I saw a pleasant sight. 



THE LILY. 

Wliere saw you it, and when ? 

THE ROSE. 

Here, when the night 

Lay calmly over all and covered us. 

And no wind blew, however tremulous, 

I heard afar the light fall of her feet 

And murmur of her raiment soft and sweet. 

THE LILY. 

What said she to thee when she came anear? 

THE ROSE. 

No word, but o'er me bent till I could hear 
The beating of her heart, and feel her blood 
Swell to a blossom that which was a bud. 
Alas, I have no words to tell the bliss 
When on my trembling petals fell her kiss ; 
Sweeter than soft rain falling after heat, 
Or dew at dawn, was that kiss soft and sweet. 
Then fell another shadow on the ground. 
And for a little space there was no sound : 
I knew who stood beside her, saw his face 
Shining and happy in that happy place. 
I know not what they said ; but this I know 
They kissed and passed : where think you did they go ? 
Philip Bourke Marston 
89 



A 



LOVERS 
CRASH of boughs ! — one through them break- 



ins: 



Mercy is startled, and fain would fly, 
But e'en as she turns, her steps o'ertaking, 
He pleads with her, " Mercy, it is but I ! 

" Mercy ! " he touches her hand unbidden, — 
" The air is balmy, I pray you stay, — 

Mercy ? " Her downcast eyes are hidden. 
And never a word she has to say, 

Till closer drawn, her prison'd fingers 

He takes to his lips with a yearning strong; 

And she murmurs low, that late she lingers, 
Her mother will want her and think her long. 



" Good mother is she ! then honor duly 
The lightest wish in her heart that stirs ; 

But there is a bond yet dearer truly, 
And there is a love that passeth hers. 

" Mercy, Mercy ! " Her heart attendeth, — 
Love's birthday blush on her brow lies sweet ; 

She turns her face when his own he bendeth. 
And the lips of the youth and the maiden meet. 

Jean Ingelow 



90 



FROM "LIFE'S MYSTERIES" 

A H, how the colder pulse still starts 
■^^^ To think of that one hour sublime, 
We hugged heaven down into our hearts, 
And clutched eternity in time ! 

When love's dear eyes first looked in ours, 

When love's dear brows were strange to frowns, 

When all the stars were burning flowers 
That we might pluck and wear for crowns. 

Alice Gary 



FROM "THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER" 

JL HEN, in that time and place, I spoke to her. 
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own. 
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear. 
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, 
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved ; 
And in that time and place she answered me 
And in the compass of three little words, 
More musical than ever came in one, 
The silver fragments of a broken voice, 
Made me most happy, faltering " I am thine." 

Alfred Tennyson 
91 



WON'T YOU 

DO you remember when you heard 
My lips breathe love's first faltering word ? 
You do, sweet — don't you? 
When, having wandered all the day, 
Linked arm in arm I dared to say, 

You '11 love me — won't you ? 

And when you blushed, and could not speak, 
I fondly kissed your glowing cheek ; 

Did that affront you? 
Oh, surely not ; your eye exprest 
No wrath, but said, perhaps in jest, 

" You '11 love me — won't you ? " 

I 'm sure my eyes replied, " I will ; " 
And you believe that promise still ; 

You do, sweet — don't you? 
Yes, yes, when age has made our eyes 
Unfit for questions or replies. 

You '11 love me — won't you ? 

Thomas Haynes Bayly 



K 



KISS ME SOFTLY 

ISS me softly and speak to me low, 
Malice has ever a vigilant ear ; 



What if malice were lurking near ? 
Kiss me, dear ! 
Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 
92 



Kiss me softly and speak to me low, — 

Envy too has a watchful ear ; 

What if env^y should chance to hear? 
Kiss me, dear ! 
Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low, — 
Trust me, darling, the time is near 
When lovers may love with never a fear, — 
Kiss me, dear ! 
Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 

John Godfrey Saxe 



PROPOSAL 

THE violet loves a sunny bank. 
The cowslip loves the lea, 
The scarlet creeper loves the elm ; 
But I love — thee. 

The sunshine kisses mount and vale, 

The stars, they kiss the sea. 
The west winds kiss the clover bloom. 

But I kiss — thee. 

The oriole weds his mottled mate. 

The lily 's bride o' the bee ; 
Heaven's marriage ring is round the earth — 
Shall I wed thee ? 

Bayakd Taylor 
93 



FOUR-LEAF CLOVER 

♦' TF one find a four-leaf clover" 
■L (She said, sitting on the grass), 

" He can wish whate'er he likes to, — 
And that wish shall come to pass." 

" Do you say so?" then down kneeling 
'Mong the sorrel and cropt grass. 

Looked I for a four-leaf clover 
And my wish to come to pass. 

Long I searched among the sorrel, 
Close beside me she searched too ; 

Now and then some commonplaces 
Broke the silence, — but it grew. 

For my heart was full of yearning, 

And my mouth of eager words, 
But I dared not give them utterance,— 

So I hearkened to the birds ; 

And kept looking, looking, looking. 
While beside me she looked too — 

Two bent figures in the twilight. 
Green hills paling into blue. 

" Ha, 1 have one ! " " Yes, and wished for ? " 

" You, and shall it be ? " I cried, 

Eyes cast down she asked demurely, 

" Hath the clover not repHed ? " 

George Houghton 
94 



LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY 

THE fountains mingle with the river, 
And the rivers with the ocean 
The winds of heaven mix forever 

With a sweet emotion ; 
Nothing in the world is single, 

All things by a law divine 
In one another's being mingle — 
Why not I with thine ? 

See the mountains kiss high heaven, 
And the waves clasp one another ; 
No sister flower would be forgiven 

If it disdained its brother; 
And the sunlight clasps the earth, 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea,— 
What are all these kissings worth, 
If thou kiss not me? 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 



THE cup of love the hands of two hold. 
Lucy Larcom 



Indeed I love thee: come 
Yield thyself up; my hopes and thine are one. 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hand in mine and trust to me. 

Alfred Tennyson 

95 



FROM "QUEEN MARY 
The Happiest Hour, 



I 



.T was May time, 
And I was walking with the man I loved, — 
I loved him, but I thought I was not loved ; 
And both were silent, letting the wild brook 
Speak for us, till he stoop'd and gathered one 
From out a bed of thick forget-me-nots, 
Look'd hard and sweet at me and gave it me. 
I took it, tho' I did not know I took it, 
And put it in my bosom, and all at onee 
I felt his arm about me, and his lips. 

Alfred Tennyson 



EVENING SONG 

LOOK off, dear Love, across the sallow sands, 
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea ; 
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands — 
Ah, longer, longer, we ! 

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, 
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine. 

And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'T is done, 
Love, lay thine hand in mine. 

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart ; 

Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. 
O Night ! divorce our sun and sky apart, — 
Never our lips, our hands. 

Sidney Lanier 
96 



VIII. 



A weak white girl 
Held all his heartstrings in her s?nall white hand; 
His youth, and power ^ aiid majesty were hers,, 
And not his own. 

Jean Ingelow 



So these lives that had run thus far in separate 

channels, 
Coming in sight of each other^ then swerving and 

flowing asunder, 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and 

nearer. 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the 

other. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



MARRIAGE 

' I ^HEN before all they stand, — the holy vow 
-■- And ring of gold, no fond illusions now, 
Bind her as his. Across the threshold led, 
And every tear kissed off as soon as shed. 
His house she enters, — there to be a light. 
Shining within, when all without is night; 
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding; 
Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing. 
Winning him back when mingling in the throng, 
Back from a world we love, alas ! too long, 
To fireside happiness, to hours of ease, 
Blest with that charm, — the certainty to please. 
How oft her eyes read his ; her gentle mind 
To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined ; 
Still subject, — ever on the watch to borrow 
Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow ! 
The soul of music slumbers in the shell. 
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell. 
And feeling hearts — touch them but rightly — pour 
A thousand melodies unheard before. 

Samuel Rogers 



HAPPY, happier far than thou 
With the laurel on thy brow, 
She that makes the humblest hearth 
Lovely but to one on earth. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans 
99 



THE LITTLE BROWN CABIN 

I DREAM of it, tossing about in my skiff, 
The little brown cabin just under the cliff; 
The wild rose blown in at the window I see, 
And Rose at the door, looking out after me ; 
My sweetheart, my wife, 
The Rose of my life ! 

The sun in the doorway strikes gold from her hair : 
The breeze fills the little brown house with salt air. 
And she leans to its breath, as if over the sea 
It were bringing a kiss and a message from me; 

My pretty wild Rose, 

The sweetest that grows ! 

I have not one wish from my darling apart : 
The thought of her sweetens my soul and my heart ; 
And my boat like a bird flies across the blue sea 
To the little brown cabin where Rose waits for me, 

The Rose of my life, 

My own blessed wife ! 

Lucy Larcom 



N 



SUMMER 

OW sinks the summer sun into the sea; 
Sure never such a sunset shone as this, 
That on its golden wing has borne such bliss, 
Dear Love, to thee and me. 

100 



Ah, life was drear and lonely, missing thee, 

Though what my loss I did not then divine ; 
But all is past, — the sweet words, thou art mine, 
Make bliss for thee and me. 

How swells the light breeze o'er the blossoming lea, 
Sure never winds swept past so sweet and low, 
No lonely, unblest future waiteth now, 
Dear Love, for thee and me. 

Look upward o'er the glowing west, and see, 
Surely the star of evening never shone 
With such a holy radiance — oh, my own. 
Heaven smiles on thee and me. 

Marietta Holley 



SHE WAS MINE 

"' nnHY tears o'erprize thy loss ! Thy wife 
J- In what was she particular? 
Others of comely face and life. 

Others as chaste and warm there are, 
And when they speak they seem to sing ; 

Beyond her sex she was not wise ; 
And there is no more common thing 
Than kindness in a woman's eyes. 
Then wherefore weep so long and fast, 

Why so exceedingly repine ? 
Say, how has thy Beloved surpass'd 

So much all others ? " " She was mine." 
Coventry Patmore 

lOI 



T 



HOME. 

WO birds within one nest; 

Two hearts within one breast ; 
Two spirits in one fair, 
Firm league of love and prayer, 
Together bound for aye, together blest. 

An ear that waits to catch 

A hand upon the latch ; 

A step that hastens its sweet rest to win, 

A world of care without, 

A world of strife shut out, 
A world of love shut in. 

Dora Greenwell 



FOR THOUGHTS 

A PANSY on his breast she laid. 
Splendid and dark with Tyrian dyes, 
"Take it, 't is like your tender eyes. 
Deep as the midnight heaven," she said. 

The rich rose mantling in her cheek, 
Before him like the dawn she stood, 
Pausing upon life's height, subdued, 

Yet triumphing, both proud and meek; 

And white as winter stars, intense 
With steadfast fire, his brilliant face 
Bent toward her with an eager grace, 

Pale with a rapture half suspense. 

102 



" You give me then a thought, O sweet ! " 
He cried, and kissed the purple flower, 
And bowed by Love's resistless power 

Trembling he sank before her feet. 

She crowned his beautiful bowed head 
With one caress of her white hand ; 
" Rise up, my flower of all the land ; 

For all my thoughts are yours," she said. 

Celia Thaxter 



THE TWO ANCHORS 

IT was a gallant sailor man. 
Had just come home from sea, 
And, as 1 passed him in the town 

He sang " Ahoy ! " to me. 
I stopped, and saw I knew the man, 

Had known him from a boy; 
And so I answered, sailor-like, 

" Avast ! " to his " Ahoy ! " 
I made a song for him one day, — 

His ship was then in sight, — 
"The little anchor on the left 

The great one on the right." 

I gave his hand a hearty grip, 
" So you are back again ? 

They say you have been pirating 
Upon the Spanish main, 

Or was it some rich Indiaman 
You robbed of all her pearls .-^ 

103 



Of course you have been breaking hearts 

Of poor Kanaka girls ! " 
" Wherever I have been," he said, 

" I kept my ship in sight, — 
< The little anchor on the left, 

The great one on the right.' " 

" I heard last night that you were in, 

I walked the wharves to-day, 
But saw no ship that looked hke yours; 

Where does the good ship lay? 
I want to go on board of her." 

" And so you shall," said he ; 
" But there are many things to do 

When one comes home from sea. 
You know the song you made for me? 

I sing it day and night, — 
* The little anchor on the left, 

The great one on the right.' " 

" But how 's your wife and little one ? " 

" Come home with me," he said. 
" Go on, go on ; I follow you." 

I followed where he led. 
He had a pleasant little house; 

The door was open wide. 
And at the door the dearest face — 

A dearer one inside. 
He hugged his wife and child ; he sang, 

His spirits were so light, 
" The little anchor on the left. 

The great one on the right." 
104 



'T was supper-time, and we sat down, 

The sailor's wife and child 
And he and I ; he looked at them, 

And looked at me, and smiled. 
" I think of this when I am tossed 

Upon the stormy foam, 
And though a thousand leagues away, 

I am anchored here at home." 
Then, giving each a kiss, he said, 

" I see in dreams at night 
This httle anchor on my left. 

This great one on my right." 

Richard Henry Stoddard 



AND in that twihght hush, God drew their hearts 
Indissolubly close. For what is love 
But his most perfect weaving, — intertwine 
Of the soul's deathless fibres threading in 
Our human lives, one weft with the divine. 

Lucy Larcom 



FOR there are two heavens, sweet. 
Both made of love, — one, inconceivable 
Ev'n by the other, so divine it is ; 
The other, far on this side of the stars, 
By men called home. 

Leigh Hunt 
105 



ON A CYCLAMEN 

Plucked at Cana of Galilee and presented to a bride. 

ONLY a flower! but, dear, it grew 
On the green mountains which en-ring 
Kana-el-Jelil ; looking to 
The village and the little spring ! 

The Love which did those bridals bless 

Ever and ever on you shine ! 
Make happier all your happiness, 

And turn its water into wine ! 

Edwin Arnold 



FROM "THE HANGING OF THE CRANE" 

O FORTUNATE, O happy day. 
When a new household finds its place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 
Like a new star just sprung to birth, 
And rolled on its harmonious way 
Into the boundless realms of space ! 

For two alone, there in the hall, 
Is spread the table round and small; 
Upon the polished silver shine 
The evening lamps ; but, more divine, 
The light of love shines over all ; 
Of love that says not mine and thine. 
But ours, for ours is mine and thine. 
1 06 



They want no guests, to come between 
Their tender glances like a screen, 
And tell them tales of land and sea, 
And whatsoever may betide 
The great, forgotten world outside ; 
They want no guests ; they needs must be 
Each other's own best company. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



TWO LOVERS 

TWO lovers by a moss-grown spring : 
They leaned soft cheeks together there, 
Mingled the dark and sunny hair. 
And heard the wooing thrushes sing. 
O budding time ! 
O love's best prime ! 

Two wedded from the portal stept: 
The bells made happy caroUings, 
The air was soft as fanning wings. 
White petals on the pathway slept. 
O pure-eyed bride ! 
O tender pride ! 

Two faces o'er a cradle bent ; 

Two hands above the head were locked ; 
These pressed each other while they rocked, 
Those watched a life that love had sent. 
O solemn hour ! 
O hidden power ! 

107 



Two parents by the evening fire: 
The red light fell about their knees 
On heads that rose by slow degrees 
Like buds upon the lily spire. 
O patient life ! 
O tender strife ! 

The two still sat together there, 
The red light shone about their knees ; 
But all the heads by slow degrees 
Had gone and left that lonely pair. 
O voyage fast ! 
O vanished past ! 

The red light shone upon the floor 
And made the space between them wide, 
They drew their chairs up side by side, 
Their pale cheeks joined, and said : " Once more ! " 
O memories ! 
O past that is ! 

George Eliot 



WHERE we love is home. 
Home that our feet may leave, but not our 
hearts, 
Though o'er us shines the jasper-lighted dome : — 
The chain may lengthen but it never parts ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 



1 08 



IX. 



O lady, there bi many things 

That seejn right fair, below, above; 

But sure not one among them all 
Is half so sweet as love. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 



LOVE TOOK ME SOFTLY BY THE HAND 

LOVE took me softly by the hand, 
Love led me all the country o'er, 
And showed me beauty in the land, 
That I had never dreamt before. 
Never before, O Love ! sweet Love ! 

There was a glory in the morn, 
There was a calmness in the night, 

A mildness by the south wind borne, 
That I had never felt aright, 
Never aright, O Love ! sweet Love! 

But now it cannot pass away, 

I see it wheresoe'er I go, 
And in my heart by night and day, 

Its gladness waveth to and fro, 
By night and day, O Love ! sweet Love ! 

Walter R. Cassels 



SOMETHING the heart must have to cherish, 
Must love and joy and sorrow learn, 
Something with passion clasp, or perish. 
And in itself to ashes burn. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
III 



I KNOW MYSELF THE BEST BELOVED 
OF ALL 

I KNOW myself the best beloved of all 
The many dear to him ; yet not indeed 
Because of his swift thought for every need 

Of my love's craving ; I could scarcely call 

My very own the power to enthrall 
Such chivalry as his, that turns to heed 
Each slightest claim, nor thinks to ask the meed 

Of Love returned where Love's sweet offerings fall. 
Not then because of all he is to me ; 

But by this surer token : when he earns 

The right to his own happiness, or yearns 

For some sweet, sudden, answering sympathy, 
Ah me! with what quick-beating heart I see 

For his own joy it is to me he turns ! 

Alice Wellington Rollins 



OH, THAT WE TWO WERE MAYING 

OH, that we two were Maying, 
Down the stream of the soft spring breeze ; 
Like children with violets playing, 
In the shade of the whispering trees. 

Oh, that we two sat dreaming 

On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, 

Watching the white mist steaming 

Over river and mead and town. 

112 



Oh, that we two lay sleeping 

In our nest in the churchyard sod, 

With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, 

And our souls at home with God. 

Charles Kingsley 



THREE KISSES ^" 

FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed 
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, 
And ever since it grew more clean and white, — 
Slow to world-greetings, — quick with its " Oh, list ! " 
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 
I could not wear here plainer to my sight 
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed 
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed ! 
That was the chrism of love, with love's own crown. 
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 
The third upon my lips was folded down 
In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed 
I have been proud and said, " My Love, my own." 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



WITH what a graceful tenderness he loves ! 
And breathes the softest, the sincerest vows ! 
Complacency, and truth, and manly sweetness 
Dwell ever on his tongue and smooth his thoughts. 

Joseph Addison 
» 113 



MY LETTERS 

MY letters all dead paper — mute and white ! — 
And yet they seem alive and quivering 
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string 
And let them drop down on my knee to-night. 
This said — He wished to have me in his sight 
Once, as a friend ; this fixed a day in spring 
To come and touch my hand, — a simple thing, 
Yet I wept for it ! — this — the paper 's light — 
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed, 
As if God's future thundered on my past ; 
This said, / aui thine, — and so its ink has paled 
With lying at my heart, that beat too fast ; 
And this — O Love, thy words have ill availed, 
If what this said I dared repeat at last ! 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



MAY AND LOVE. 

MAY in the woods and in my heart, 
And we beside the river ; 
King love between us flying 
Said, " Children, love forever." 

I heard him, and I thought she heard, 

Her lips began to quiver, 
And so I shyly kissed her ; 
Love laughed along the river! 

Stopford a. Brooke 
114 



FROM "IN THE GARDEN" 

AND tJiis is Love! until this hour 
I never lived; but like a flower 
Close prest i' the bud, with sleeping senses, 
I drank the dark dim influences 
Of sunlight, moonlight, shade, and dew. 
At last I open, thrilling thro' 
With Love's strange scent, which seemeth part 
Of the warm life within my heart. 
Part of the air I breathe — O bliss ! 
Was ever night so sweet as this ? 
It is enough to breathe, to be, 
As if one were a flower, a tree ; 
A leaf o' the bough, just stirring light 
With the warm breathing of the night ! 

Robert Buchanan 



I DID hear you talk 
Far above singing ; after you were gone, 
I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched 
What stirred it so. Alas ! I found it love. 

Beaumont and Fletcher 



I 



THINK we had the chief of all love's joys 
Only in knowing that we loved each other. 
George Eliot 
115 



LOVERS 

TWO young fair lovers, 
Where the warm June wind, 
Fresh from the sunny fields, 
Plays fondly round them. 
Stand, tranced in joy, 

With sweet, join'd voices. 
And with eyes brimming ; 
"Ah," they cry, " Destiny, 
Prolong the present ! 
Time, stand still here ! " 

Matthew Arnold 



ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTIOxN 

DO you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, 
the dove. 
The linnet, and thrush say, " I love, and I love ! " 
In winter they 're silent, the wind is so strong; 
What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song. 
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm 

weather, 
And singing and loving, all come back together. 
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love. 
The green fields below him, the blue sky above. 
That he sings and he sings, and forever sings he, 
I love my Love, and my Love loves me. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
ii6 



LOVE NOTES 

'"jpHE nightingale has a lyre of gold, 
-L The lark's is a clarion call, 
And the blackbird plays but a box-wood flute, 
But I love him best of all. 

P'or his song is all of the joy of life, 
And we in the mad spring weather, 

We two have listened till he sang 
Our hearts and lips together. 

William Ernest Henley 



SONG FROM "PIERO DA CASTIGLIONE 

OJOY of life, O joy of love ! 
When cloudless skies are blue above, 
In starry spring ! 

When happy warblers on the wing 
Do mating build their nests and sing, — 
O joy of life ! 

O joy of Hfe, O joy of love ! 

When God in cloudless skies above 

Knits heart to heart 

That time, nor fate, nor death can part. 

Stuart Stearne 
117 



ON A CLOCK 

LONELY once, my love away, 
To this slave of Time I cried : 
" Faster on your journey glide, 
Let your feet no second stay ; 
Speed the dreary night and day ! " 
He all heedless, obstinate, 
Never quickened in his gait. 

Happy once, my love in sight, 
To this slave of Time I prayed: 
" Be your journey slowly made, 
Loiter with me in delight ; 
Stay the happy day and night ! " 

Obstinate, he heard at last, — 
Heard, and hurried twice as fast. 

Frank Dempster Sherman 



LOVE'S LANGUAGE 

nPHEIR little language the children 
-■- Have, on the knee as they sit ; 
And only those who love them 
Can find the key to it. 

The words thereof and the grammar 

Perplex the logician's art ; 
But the heart goes straight with the meaning, 

And the meaning is clear to the heart. 
ii8 



So thou, my Love, hast a language 

That in Httle says all to me ; — 
But the world cannot guess the sweetness 

Which is hidden with love and thee. 

Francis Turner Palgrave 



THERE is a glory in tree and blossom, 
A trill in the wild bird's tone, 
A balm in the summer breezes, 
That Love revealeth, alone. 

Benjamin S. Parker 



19 



X. 



O Life ! what after-joy hast thou 
Like Love's first certain gladness ? 

Mary Howitt 

Nothing is better, / well know, 
Thati love. 

Algernon Charles Swinburne 

Life may to you bring every good 

Which from a Father'' s haiid can fall : 

But if true lips have said to me, 
" / love you,'''' I have known it all ! 

Phcebe Gary 



LIFE'S GIFTS 

WHEN I grow gray and men shall say to me, 
" What was the worth of living, truly told ? 
Lo ! thou hast lived thy life out ; thou art old ; 
Thou hast gathered fruit from many a green-leaved 

tree. 
And kissed love's lips by many a summer sea. 
And twined soft hands in locks of shining gold, 
But all thy days are dead days now, behold ! 
Life passes onward, — what is life to thee ? " 
Then will I answer, — as thy gracious eyes, 
Love, gleam upon me from dim far-off skies, — 
*' Life had its endless deathless charm, — and still 
That charm weaves rapture round me at my will. 
Life has its glory, — for I have seen Thee; 
And roses, and June sunsets, — and the sea." 

George Barlow 



EUREKA 

WHOM I crown with love is royal. 
Matters not her blood or birth ; 
She is queen, and I am loyal 
To the noblest of the earth. 

Neither place, nor wealth, nor title. 
Lacks the man my friendship owns ; 

His distinction, true and vital, 

Shines supreme o'er crowns and thrones. 
123 



Where true love bestows its sweetness, 
Where true friendship lays its hand, 

Dwells all greatness, all completeness, 
All the wealth of every land. 

Man is greater than condition, 
And where man himself bestows, 

He begets, and gives position 
To the gentlest that he knows. 

Neither miracle nor fable 

Is the water changed to wdne ; 
Lords and ladies at my table 

Prove Love's simplest fare divine. 

And if these accept my duty, 

If the loved my homage own, 
I have won all worth and beauty ; 

I have found the magic stone. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland 



I 



SIMPLY say that she is good, 
And loves me with pure womanhood. 
. When that is said, why, what remains? 
Joaquin Miller 

124 



THE SONG OF THE CAMP 

" /""^IVE us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 
V-J The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated guns of the camps allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff, 
Lay, grim and threatening, under; 

And the tawny mound of the Malakoff 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. A guardsman said : 
" We storm the forts to-morrow : 

Sing while we may, another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery's side, 

Below the smoking cannon ; 
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love and not of fame : 

Forgot was Britain's glory ; 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang " Annie Laurie." 

Voice after voice caught up the song. 

Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, — 

Their battle-eve confession. 
125 



Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, 

But, as the song grew louder, 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers. 

And once again a fire of hell 
Rained on the Russian quarters 

With scream of shot, and burst of shell, 
And bellowing of the mortars. 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer, dumb and gory. 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of " Annie Laurie." 

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 

Your truth and valor wearing ; 
The bravest are the tenderest. 

The loving are the daring. 

Bayard Taylor 



LOVE is the only good in the world, 
Henceforth be loved as heart can love. 
Or brain devise, or hand approve. 

Robert Browning 
126 



GONE 

" /^^ONE is the freshness of my youthful prime; 

^<-^ Gone the illusions of a later time ; 
Gone is the thought that wealth is worth its cost 
Or aught I hold so good as what I 've lost ; 
Gone are the beauty and the nameless grace 
That once I worshipped in dear Nature's face. 
Gone is the mighty music that of yore 
Swept through the woods or rolled upon the shore; 
Gone the desire of glory in men's breath 
To waft my name beyond the deeps of Death ; 
Gone is the hope that in the darkest day 
Saw bright to-morrow with empurpling ray ; 
Gone, gone, all gone, on which my heart was cast, 
Gone, gone forever to the awful Past : — 
All gone — but Love ! " 

Oh, coward to repine ! 
Thou hast all else, if Love indeed be thine ! 

Charles Mackay 



BEST 

" T OVE is better than house and lands : 

-L' So, Sir Stephen, I '11 ride with thee." 
She made one step where the courser stands. 
One light spring to the saddle-tree. 
127 



Love is better than kith or kin : 
So close she clung, and so close clasped he, 
They heard no sob of the bitter wind, 
Or snow that shuddered along the lea. 

Love is better than life and breath : 
The drifts are over the horse's knee, 
Softly they sink to the soft white death. 
And the snow shroud hides them silently. 

Houses and lands are gone for aye ; 
Kith and kin like the wild wind flee ; 
Life and death have vanished away ; 
But love hath blossomed eternally. 

Rose Terry Cooke 



LOVE'S light is strange to you ? Ah, me ! 
Your heart is an unquickened seed, 
And whatsoe'er your fortunes be, 
I tell you, you are poor indeed. 

What toucheth it, it maketh bright, 

Yet loseth nothing, like the sun, 
Within whose great and gracious light 
A thousand dew-drops shine as one. 

Alice Cary 
128 



AN EXTRAVAGANZA 
Enfant ! si j'etais roi, je donnerais I'empire. 

I'D give, Girl (were I but a king), 
Throne, sceptre, empire, — everything : 
My people suppliant on the knee; 
My ships that crowd the subject sea; 
My crown, my baths of porphyry, 
For one sweet look from thee ! 

Were I a god, I 'd give — the air, 
Earth, and the sea; the angels fair; 
The skies; the golden worlds around; 
The demons whom my laws have bound; 
Chaos and its dark progeny ; 
All space and all eternity, 

For 07ie love-kiss from thee ! 

Victor Hugo 



THE TWO LOVES 

SMOOTHING soft the nestling head 
Of a maiden fancy-led, 
Thus a grave-eyed woman said : 

"Richest gifts are those we make, 
Dearer than the love we take 
That we give for love's own sake. 
129 



" Well I know the heart's unrest ; 
Mine has been the common quest, — 
To be loved and therefore blest. 



At my feet as on a shrine 
Love has laid its gifts divine. 

" Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet 
With their sweetness came regret, 
And a sense of unpaid debt. 

" Heart of mine unsatisfied. 
Was it vanity or pride 
That a deeper joy denied ? 

" Hands that ope but to receive 
Empty close ; they only Hve 
Richly, who can richly give. 

" Still," she sighed with moistening eyes, 
" Love is sweet in any guise ; 
But its best is sacrifice ! 

*' He who, giving, does not crave 
Likest is to Him who gave 
Life itself the loved to save. 

" Love, that self-forgetful gives. 
Sows surprise of ripened sheaves. 
Late or soon its own receives." 

John Greexleaf Whittier 
130 



BETTER THINGS 

BETTER to smell a violet 
Than sip the careless wine ; 
Better to list one music tone 
Than watch the jewels' shine. 

Better to have the love of one 
Than smiles like morning dew; 
Better to have a living seed 
Than flowers of every hue. 

Better to feel a love within 
Than be lovely to the sight; 
Better a homely tenderness 
Than beauty's wild delight. 

Better to love than be beloved, 
Though lonely all the day ; 
Better the fountain in the heart 
Than the fountain by the way. 

Better the thanks of one dear heart 
Than a nation's voice of praise ; 
Better the twilight ere the dawn 
Than yesterday's mid-blaze. 

Better a death when work is done 
Than earth's most favored birth ; 
Better a child in God's great house 
Than the king of all the earth. 

Leigh Hunt 
131 



FROM "KATRINA" 



I 



DREW her head 
Down to my cheek, and said : " My angel wife ! 
Whatever torment or disquietude 
I may have suffered, you have never been 
Its cause or its occasion. You are all — 
You have been all — that womanhood can be 
To manhood's want; and in your woman's love 
And woman's pain, I have found every good 
My life has known since first our lives were joined. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland 



W^EDDED 

HE took in both hands her lovely head, 
And looked in her eyes serene, 
Many years married, but still as fond 
As the fooHsh boy had been. 

And *' O my dear," said he, " and my love, 
My dear sweet love and my wife. 

If every kiss were a golden coin, 
You would be rich for life. 

" Nay, if of every kiss I have given 
Each were but a single penny, 

You would be rich with riches to spare — 
Sweet wife, think how many, how many ! 
132 



"Yea, truly," she said, " yet I 'd not barter one 
While I bind up my sheaves of caresses; 

But there 's many, oh, many a poor rich wife 
Who would give all of her gold for the kisses." 

James V. Blake 



LOVE'S THREAD OF GOLD. 

IN the night she told a story. 
In the night and all night through, 
While the moon was in her glory, 

And the branches dropped with dew. 
'T was my life she told, and round it 

Rose the years as from a deep ; 
In the world's great heart she found it, 

Cradled like a child asleep. 
In the night I saw her weaving 

By the misty moonbeam cold. 
All the weft her shuttle cleaving 

With a sacred thread of gold. 
Ah ! she wept me tears of sorrow, 

Lulling tears so mystic sweet; 
Then she wove my last to-morrow. 

And her web lay at my feet. 
Of my life she made the story : 

I must weep — so soon 't was told ! 
But your name did lend it glory, 

And your love its thread of gold ! 

Jean Ingelow 
133 



FROM "LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 

IN peace love tunes the shepherd's reed ; 
In war he mounts the warrior's steed ; 
In halls in gay attire is seen ; 
In hamlets dances on the green. 
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
And men below, and saints above ; 
For Love is heaven, and heaven is Love. 

Sir Walter Scott 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

I. 

WHERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles 
Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep 

Half asleep 
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop 
As they crop — 

II. 
Was the site once of a city great and gay, 

(So they say) 
Of our country's very capital, its prince 

Ages since 
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far 

Peace or war. 

134 



III. 
Now — the country does not even boast a tree, 

As you see, 
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills 

From the hills 
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run 

Into one) 

IV. 

Where the doomed and daring palace shot its spires 

Up like fires 
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall 

Bounding all, 
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest, 

Twelve abreast. 

V. 
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 

Never was ! 
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads 

And embeds 
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, 

Stock or stone — 

VI. 

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe 

Long ago ; 
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame 

Struck them tame ; 
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 

Bought and sold. 

^35 



VII. 

Now, — the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 
While the patching houseleek's head of blossoms winks 

Through the chinks — 

VIII. 

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime. 
And a burning ring all round, the chariots traced 

As they raced, 
And the monarch and his minions and his dames 

Viewed the games. 

IX. 

And I know while thus the quiet-colored eve 

Smiles to leave 
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece 

In such peace, 
And the slopes and the rills in undistinguished gray 

Melt away — 

X, 

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 

Waits me there 
In the turret, whence the charioteers caught soul 

For the goal. 
When the king looked, where she looks now, breath- 
less, dumb 

Till I come. 

136 



XI. 

But he looked upon the city, every side, 

Far and wide, 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' 

Colonnades, 
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then, 

All the men ! 

XII. 

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face. 
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 

XIII. 

In one year they sent a million fighters forth 

South and north, 
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 

As the sky, 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — 

Gold, of course. 

XIV. 

Oh, heart ! oh, blood that freezes, blood that burns ! 

Earth's returns 
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! 

Shut them in, 
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest. 
Love is best. 

Robert Browning 
137 



FROM "THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S 
SUPPER" 

LOVE is the root of creation; God's essence; 
-^ worlds without number 
Lie in his bosom like children ; he made them for 

this purpose only. 
Only to love and be loved again, he breathed forth 

his spirit 
Into the slumbering dust, and upright standing, it 

laid its 
Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame 

out of heaven. 
Quench, oh, quench not that flame! It is the breath 

of your being, 
Love is life, but hatred is death. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



EROS 

THE sense of the world is short, — 
Long and vanous the report, — 
To love and be beloved ; 
Men and gods have not outlearned it; 
And, how oft so'er they 've turned it, 
'T will not be improved. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 



T 



HE gate of Heaven is Love, there is none other. 

Lucy Larcom 
138 



XI. 



He sang out of his soul what he found there. 
He sang of Love and Life and Sorrow and Deaths 
Of Knowledge and of sweet Philosophy ; 
He sang how Love is mightiest of all these. 

Henry Bernard Carpenter 

Love is not to be reasoned down or lost 
In high ambition., and a thirst of greatness. 
''T is second life^ it grows into the soiil^ 
Wa7'iJis every vein, and beats in every pulse. 

Joseph Addison 



NEVER KNEW IT, LOVE, TILL NOW 

I ne'er imagined, Love, that thou 
Wert such a mighty one; at will, 
Thou canst both faith and conscience bow, 

And thy despotic law fulfil ; 
I never knew it, Love, till now. 

I thought 1 knew thee well, — I thought 

That I thy mazes had explored ; 
But I within thy nets am caught, 

And now I own thee sovereign lord. 
I ne'er imagined. Love, that thou 

Wert such a mighty one ; at will, 
Thou bid'st both faith and conscience bow, 

And thy despotic law fulfil ; 
I never knew it, Love, till now. 

Spanish of Juan II., King of Castile 



LOVE SCORNS DEGREES 

LOVE scorns degrees ! the low he lifteth high, 
The high he draweth down to that fair plain 
Whereon, in his divine equality. 
Two loving hearts may meet, nor meet in vain ; 
'Gainst such sweet levelling Custom cries amain, 
But o'er its harshest utterance one bland sigh. 
Breathed passion-wise, doth mount victorious still, 
For Love, earth's lord must have his lordly will. 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 
141 



THE LAST LETTER 

LONG years within its sepulchre 
Of faintly scented cedar, 
Has lain this letter, dear to her 
Who was its constant reader ; 
The postmark on the envelope 
Sufficed the date to give her, 
And told the birth of patient hope 
That managed to outlive her. 

How often to this treasure-box, 

Tears in her eyes' soft fringes, 
She came with key and turned the locks, 

And on its brazen hinges 
Swung back the quaintly figured lid, 

And raised a sandal cover. 
Disclosing, under trinkets hid. 

This message from her lover. 

Then lifting it as 'twere a child, 

Her hand awhile caressed it 
Ere to the lips that sadly smiled 

Time and again she pressed it ; 
Then drew the small enclosure out 

And smoothed the wrinkled paper, 
Lest any line should leave a doubt 

Or any word escape her. 

Still held the olden charm its place 

Amid the tender phrases. 
Time seemed unwilling to efface 

The love-pervaded praises; 
142 



And though a thousand lovers might 
Have matched them all for passion, 

A poet were inspired to write 
In their unstudied fashion. 

From "Darling" slowly, word by word, 

She reads the tear-stained treasure ; 
The mists by which her eyes were blurred 

Grew out of pain and pleasure ; 
But when she reached that cherished name, 

And saw the last leave-taking, 
The mist a storm of grief became — 

Her very heart was breaking! 

I put it back, — this old-time note 

Which seems like sorrow's leaven, 
For she who read and he who wrote. 

Please God, are now in heaven. 
If lovers of to-day could win 

Such love as won this letter. 
The world about us would begin 

To gladden and grow better. 

Frank Dempster Sherman 



FOR they alone have need of sorrow, 
And they alone are poor. 
For whom, in life. Love's holy angel 
Hath opened not her door. 

Mary Clemmer 
143 



ALL THE YEAR ROUND 

GO, time and tide, go as you will — 
I cannot heed your ways. 
What care I for summer glow, 
What care I for ice and snow, 
When love doth fill my days? 

Into its ark through wind and rain 

My heart flies as the dove; 
Oh, rosy is the darkened day 
And rosy is the stormy way 

That lead me to my Love. 

How can I care if leaves be green 

Or gray with early rime ? 
Love, ruling, reigning in the soul 
With pure and passionate control. 

Makes its own summer-time. 

Ellen Mackay Hutchinson 



LOVE AND LIFE 

THE way is steep and hard to tread, and drear; 
Piercing and bleak the icy atmosphere, 
My feet are bruised and bleeding, and my eyes 
Can only with dim questionings seek the skies. 
How could I walk a step without thine aid.? 
How face the awful silence unafraid ? 
How bear the star-rays and the moon glance cold? 
Loose not thine hold ! 
144 



Earth and its kindly ways seem very far, 
And yet the shining skies no nearer are ; 
Except for thee, dear Love, I could not go 
Over the hard rocks, the untrodden snow, 
But had sat down content with lower things, 
With scanty crumbs and waning water-springs, — 
A winged thing, whose wings might not unfold. 
Loose not thine hold ! 

Loose not thine hold ! let me feel all the while 
The quickening impulse of thy tender smile 
Luring me on, and catch, as if in trance, 
The lovely reverence of thy downward glance, 
The pity and the splendor of thy face, 
The recognition like a soft embrace. 
Until my feet shall tread the streets of gold. 
Loose not thy hold ! 

Sarah Woolsey 
(Susan Coolidge) 



THE HEART'S CALL 

HE rides away at early light. 
Amid the tingling frost. 
And in the mist that sweeps her sight 
His form is quickly lost. 

He crosses now the silent stream, 
Now skirts the forest drear, 

Whose thickets cast a silver gleam 
From leafage thin and sear. 

H5 



Long falls the shadow at his back 
(The morning springs before); 

His thoughts fly down the shadow'd track 
And haunt his cottage door. 

Miles gone, upon the hilltop bare 

He draws a sudden rein ; 
His name, her voice, rings on the air, 

Then all is still again ! 

She sits at home, she speaks no word, 

But deeply calls her heart ; 
And this it is that he has heard, 

Though they are miles apart. 

Edith M. Thomas 



MY JEAN 

THOUGH cruel fate should bid us part, 
Far as the pole and line. 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 
Though mountains rise, and deserts howl, 

And oceans roar between. 
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul, 
I still would love my Jean. 

Robert Burns 
146 



FROM "HAROLD" 

HAROLD. 

f^ALL me not King, but Harold. 

EDITH. 

Nay, thou art King! 

HAROLD. 

Thine, thine, or King or churl ! 

My girl, thou hast been weeping : turn not thou 

Thy face away, but rather let me be 

King of the moment to thee, and command 

That kiss my due when subject, which will make 

My kingship kinglier to me than to reign 

King of the world without it. 

Kiss me — thou art not 
A holy sister yet, my girl, to fear 
There might be more than brother in my kiss, 
And more than sister in thine own. 

EDITH. 

I dare not. 



HAROLD. 

Edith, 
Hadst thou been braver, I had better braved 
All— but I love thee and thou me — and that 
Remains beyond all chances and all churches, 
And that thou knowest. 

147 



EDITH. 

Ay, but take back thy ring. 

It burns my hand — a curse to thee and me. 

I dare not wear it. 

HAROLD. 

But I dare. God with thee ! 

lExit. 

EDITH. 

The King hath cursed him, if he marry me ; 
The Pope hath cursed him, marry me or no ! 
God help me ! I know nothing — can but pray 
For Harold — pray, pray, pray — no help but prayer, 
A breath that fleets beyond this iron world, 
And touches Him that made it. 

Alfred Tennyson 



AH, Love ! let us be true 
To one another ; for the world, which seems 
To lie before us like a land of dreams, 
So various, so beautiful, so new, 
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 
And we are here as on a darkling plain, 
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight 
Where ignorant armies clash by night. 

Matthew Arnold 
148 



FROM "EVANGELINE" 

HALF-WAY down to the shore Evangeline waited 
in silence, 
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 

affliction, — 
Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession 

approached her, 
And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 
Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 

meet him, 
Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his 

shoulder, and whispered, — 
" Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we love one 

another, 
Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 

may happen ! " 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



LOVE'S FINAL POWERS 

THERE are strong powers of love that early years 
Know little of. — All added force of being 
Gives love new, deeper, tenderer eyes for seeing. 
And love wins sweetness from a lifetime's tears. 
All pangs and hopes and joys and trembling fears 
Add strength to love. As life's black darkness grows, 
Love's firmer step through that murk darkness goes, 
And dauntless over the grave's brink Love peers. 
149 



There are strange powers of love that youthful days 
Know little of. — There is a love beside 
Whose strength the passion of the ocean wide 

Is like the ripples whispering in blue bays : 
A love beside whose strength death's fingers wild 
Are weak as pink soft fingers of a child. 

George Barlow 



FROM "ARTEVELDE" 

ADRIANA. 



N. 



AY, said I not — 
And if I said it not, I say it now : 
I '11 follow thee through sunshine and through storm, 
I will be with thee in thy weal and w'oe, 
In thy afflictions, should they fall upon thee ; 
In thy temptations, when bad men beset thee, 
And should they crush thee, in the hour of death, 
Let but thy love be with me to the last. 

ARTEVELDE. 

My love is with thee ever ; that thou knowest. 

Henry Taylor 



I CAN NOT tell the spell that binds thine image 
Forever in my heart; 
I only know thou art to my existence 
Its very, vital part. 

Annie Chambers-Ketchum 
150 



XTI. 



Too full of love my soul is to fi?id place 
For fear or auger. 

Edwin Arnold 

I do not love thee less for what is dotie 
Aftd cannot be undone. Thy very weakness 
Hath brought thee nearer to me^ attd henceforth 
My love will have a sense of pity in it 
Making it less a worship than before. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



TWO TRUTHS 

"T^ARLING," he said, " I never meant 
-L^ To hurt you ; " and his eyes were wet. 

" I would not hurt you for the world ; 
Am I to blame if I forget ? " 

" Forgive my selfish tears ! " she cried, 
" Forgive ! I knew that it was not 

Because you meant to hurt me, sweet, — 
I knew it was that you forgot ! " 

But all the same, deep in her heart 

Rankled this thought, and rankles yet, — 

"When love is at its best, one loves 
So much that he cannot forget." 

Helen Hunt Jackson 



AT NOON AND MIDNIGHT 

FAR in the night, yet no rest for him ! The pillow 
next his own 
The wife's sweet face in slumber pressed — yet he 

awake, alone ! alone ! 
In vain he courted sleep; one thought would ever in 

his heart arise, — 
The harsh words that at noon had brought the tear- 
drops to her eyes. 

153 



Slowly on lifted arm he raised and listened. All was 

still as death. 
He touched her forehead as he gazed, and listened 

yet, with bated breath, 
Still silently as though he prayed, his lips moved 

lightly as she slept — 
For God was with him, and he laid his face with hers 

and wept. 

James Whitcomb Riley 



OUR OWN 

IF I had known in the morning, 
How wearily all the day 
The words unkind would trouble my mind 

That I said when you went away, 
I had been more careful, darling, 

Nor given you needless pain ; 
But — we vex our own with look and tone 
We might never take back again. 

For though in the quiet evening 

You may give me the kiss of peace, 
Yet it well might be that never for me 

The pain of the heart should cease! 
How many go forth in the morning 

Who never come home at night, 
And hearts have been broken for harsh words 
spoken 

That sorrow can ne'er set right. 

154 



We have careful thought for the stranger, 

And smiles for the sometime guest, 
But oft for our own the bitter tone, 

Though we love our own the best. 
Ah, lip with the curve impatient. 

Ah, brow with the shade of scorn, 
'T were cruel fate were the night too late 

To undo the work of morn. 

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster 



A LETTER 

TWO things love can do, 
Only two ; 
Can distrust or can believe ; 
It can die or it can live. 
There is no syncope 
Possible to love or me. 
Go your ways ! 

Two things you can do, 

Only two ; 
Be the thing you used to be, 
Or be nothing more to me, 
I can but joy or grieve. 
Can no more than die or live. 

Go your ways ! 

So far I wrote, my darling, drearily, 
But now my sad pen falls down wearily 
From out my trembling hand. 

^55 



I did not, do not, cannot mean it, Dear ! 
Come life or death, joy, grief, or hope or fear, 
I bless you where I stand ! 

I bless you where I stand excusing you. 
No speech nor language for accusing you 
My laggard lips can learn. 

To you — be what you are, or can, to me — 
To you or blessedly or fatefully 
My heart must turn ! 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 



WE KISS'D AGAIN WITH TEARS 

AS thro' the land at eve we went 
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
Oh, we fell out, I know not why, 
And kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
Oh, there above the little grave. 
We kiss'd again with tears. 

Alfred Tennyson 
156 



FORGIVEN 

I DREAMED so dear a dream of you last night ! 
I thought you came. I was so glad, so gay, 
I whispered, " Those were foolish words to say ; 
I meant them not. I cannot bear the sight 
Of your dear face. I cannot meet the light 
Of your dear eyes upon me. Sit, I pray, — 
Sit here beside me ; turn your look away. 
And lay your cheek on mine." Till morning bright 
We sat so, and we did not speak. I knew 
All was forgiven; so I nestled there 
With your arms round. Swift the sweet hours flew. 
At last I waked, and sought you everywhere. 
How long, dear, think you, that my glad cheek will 
Burn, — as it burns with your cheek's pressure still? 

Helen Hunt Jackson 



IT is n't the thing you do, dear. 
It 's the thing you leave undone, 
Which gives you a bit of a heart-ache 

At the setting of the sun. 
The tender word forgotten, 
The letter you did not write. 
The flower you might have sent, dear, 
Are your haunting ghosts to-night. 

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster 
157 



HER fittest triumph is to show that good 
Lurks in the heart of evil evermore ; 
That love, though scorned and outcast and withstood, 
Can without end forgive, and yet have store. 

James Russell Lowell 



158 



XIII. 



Not to he with you, not to see your face, 
Alas for me then, my good days are dotie. 

Alfred Tennyson 

O friend/ O best of friends / Thy absejice more 
Than the itnpending flight darkens the landscape o'er ! 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



GONE 

IS it the shrewd October wind 
Brings the tears into her eyes ? 
Does it blow so strong that she must fetch 
Her breath in sudden sighs ? 

The sound of his horse's feet grows faint, 
The Rider has passed from sight ; 

The day glides out of the crimson west, 
And coldly falls the night. 

She presses her tremulous fingers tight 

Against her closed eyes, 
And on the lonesome threshold there, 

She cowers down and cries. 

William Dean Howells 



FROM "MICHAEL ANGELO 



N. 



OW that she is gone, 
Rome is no longer Rome till she return. 
This feeling overmasters me. I know not 
If it be love, this strong desire to be 
Forever in her presence; but I know 
That I who was the friend of solitude, 
And ever was best pleased when most alone, 
Now weary grow of my own company. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
II i6i 



ABSENCE 

WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours 
That must be counted ere I see thy face ? 
How shall I charm the interval that lowers 
Between this time, and that sweet time of grace ? 

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense, 
Weary with longing ? Shall I flee away 

Into past days, and with some fond pretence 
Cheat myself to forget the present day ? 

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin 

Of casting from me God's great gift of time? 

Shall I, these mists of memory locked within, 
Leave and forget life's purposes sublime ? 

Oh, how, or by what means, may I contrive 

To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? 

How may I teach my drooping hope to live 
Until that blessed time, and thou art here? 

I '11 tell thee, for thy sake I will lay hold 
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee 

In worthy deeds each moment that is told, 
While thou, beloved one ! art far from me. 

For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try 

All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains. 
For thy dear sake I will walk patiently 

Through these long hours, nor call their minutes 
pains. 

162 



I will this dreary blank of absence make 
A noble task-time, and will therein strive 

To follow excellence, and to o'ertake 

More good than I have won, since yet I live. 

So may this doomed time build up in me 
A thousand graces which shall thus be thine ; 

So may my love and longing hallowed be, 
And thy dear thought an influence divine. 

Frances Anne Kemble 



THE BOAT OF MY LOVER 

OBOAT of my lover! go softly, go safely, 
O boat of my lover that bears him from me. 
From the homes of the clachan, from the burn singing 
sweetly, 
From the loch and the mountain he '11 never more 
see. 

boat of my lover ! go softly, go safely. 
Thou bearest my soul with thee over the tide. 

1 said not a word, but my heart it was breaking; 
For life is so short and the ocean so wide ! 

O boat of my lover ! go softly, go safely, 
Though the dear voice is silent, the kind hand is 
gone; 

But oh, love me, my lover, and I '11 live till I find thee. 
Till our parting is over, and our dark days are done. 

Dinah Maria Muloch-Craik 
163 



THE LOVED ONE EVER NEAR 

I THINK of thee, when the bright sunlight shimmers 
Across the sea ; 
When the clear fountain m the moonbeam glimmers 
I think of thee. 

I see thee, if far up the pathway yonder 

The dust be stirred ; 
If faint steps o'er the little bridge to wander 

At night be heard. 

I hear thee when the tossing wave's low rumbling 

Creeps up the hill; 
I go to the lone wood and listen, trembhng, 

When all is still. 

I am with thee wherever thou art roaming, — 

And thou art near ! 
The sun goes down, and soon the stars are coming'; 
Would thou wert here ! 

J. S. DWIGHT 
Fj'om the Genna?i of Goethe 



BUT oh ! 'twas hard to have him go, — to know 
Day after day must pass without one sight 
Of him who was so dear, so dear! to pine, 
And sigh, and long for one hand-clasp ; one sound 
Of that soft, pleasant voice, to me so sweet ; 
One glance of those dear eyes I loved to meet. 

Celia E. Gardiner 
164 



AMONG THE HEATHER 

WINTRY winds are blowing cold 
On the moors of purple heather, 
Where in summer days of old 
Hand in hand we idly strolled, 

Thou and I together. 
But those sunny days are past, 

And no more we walk together 
Where the snow, on every blast, 
Whirls above the heather. 

On the dreary moorland now 

In the storm I wander, lonely, 
Longing — love alone knows how — 
For thy kiss on hps and brow, 

Longing for thee only ; 
Life can bring me naught but pain 

Till among the purple heather 
Hand in hand we walk again, — 

Thou and I together ! 

George Arnold 



THEY PARTED 

THEY parted — if it be to part 
Still to live in each other's heart. 
Forever one dear face behold, 
Forever one dear form enfold, 
One voice forever seem to hear. 

James Robinson Planche 
165 



GOOD-BY, SWEETHEART 



G 



'OOD-BY, Sweetheart. 
I leave thee with all loveliest things 
The beauty-burdened springtime brings,- 
The anemone in snowy hood, 
The sweet arbutus in the wood. 
And to the smiling skies above 
I say, " Bend lightly o'er my love." 
And to the perfume-breathing breeze 
I sigh, " Sing softest symphonies." 
O lute-like leaves of laden trees. 
Bear all your sweet refrain to him. 
While in the June-time twilights dim 
He thinks of me as I of him. 
And so Good-by, Sweetheart ! 



Good-by, Sweetheart. 
I leave thee with all purest things, 
That when some fair temptation sings 
Its luring song, though sore beset. 
Thou 'It stronger be; then no regret 
Life-long will follow after thee. 
With touches lighter than the air 
I kiss thy forehead brave and fair, 
And say to God this last deep prayer, 
" Oh, guard him always night and day, 
So from Thy peace he shall not stray." 

And so Good-by, Sweetheart. 
i66 



Good-by, Sweetheart. We seem to part; 
Yet still within my inmost heart 
Thou goest with me. Still my place 
I hold in thine by love's dear grace ; 
Yet all my life seems going out, 
As slow I turn my face about 
To go alone another way, — 
To be alone till life's last day. 
Unless thy smile can light my way. 
Good-by, Sweetheart. The dreaded dawn 
That tells our love's long tryst is gone 
Is purpling all the pallid sky 
As loud I sigh, Sweetheart, good-by ! 

Mary Clemmer 



O DAYS AND HOURS 

ODAYS and hours, your work is this, 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace 
For fuller gain of after bliss ; 

That out of distance might ensue 
Desire of nearness doubly sweet. 
And unto meeting when we meet 

Delight a hundredfold accrue, 

For every grain of sand that runs, 
And every span of shade that steals. 
And every kiss of toothed wheels 
And all the courses of the suns. 

Alfred Tennyson 
167 



PARTING WORDS 

GOOD-BY, O love, once more I hold your hand; 
Good-by, for now the wind blows loud and long, 
The ship is ready, and the waves are strong 

To bear me far away from this thy strand. 

I know the sea that I shall cross, and land 
Whereto I journey, and the forms that throng 
Its palaces and shrines ; I know the song 

That they alone can sing and understand. 
But promise me, O love, before I go 
That sometimes, when the sun and wind are low, 

You, walking in the old familiar ways. 

Thronged with gray phantoms of the buried days. 
Will, looking seaward, say, I wonder now 
How fares it with him in the distant place. 

Philip Bourke Marston 



WORDS FOR PARTING 

OH, what shall I do, dear, 
In the coming years, I wonder, 
When our paths which lie so sweetly near. 

Shall lie so far asunder ? 
Oh, what shall I do, dear, 

Through all the sad to-morrows, 
When the sunny smile has ceased to cheer 
That smiles away my sorrows? 
168 



What shall I do, my friend, 

When you are gone forever? 
My heart its eager need will send 

Through the years, to find you never. 
And how will it be with you, 

In the weary world, I wonder! 
Will you love me with a love as true, 

When our paths lie far asunder? 

A sweeter, sadder thing, 

My life for having known you : 
Forever with my sacred kin, 

My soul's soul I must own you, — 
Forever mine, my friend, 

From June to life's December, 
Not mine to have or hold. 

But to pray for and remember. 

The way is short, O friend, 

That reaches out before us. 
God's tender heavens above us bend. 

His love is smiling o'er us. 
A httle while is ours. 

For sorrow or for laughter : 
I '11 lay the hand you love in yours, 

On the shore of the hereafter. 

Mary Clemmer 



169 



XIV. 



Thither where he lies buried! 
That single spot is the whole earth to me. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Peace ^ wild-wrimg hands ! hush^ sobbing breath / 
Love keepeth its own through life and death. 

Dinah Maria Muloch-Craik 



THE WEDDING VEIL 

DEAR Anna, when I brought her veil, 
Her white veil on her wedding night, 
Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds, 
And laughing, turned me to the light. 

" See, Bessie, see ! you wear at last 
The bridal veil foresworn for years ! " 

She saw my face, — her laugh was hushed, 
Her happy eyes were filled with tears. 

With kindly haste and trembling hand 

She drew away the gauzy mist; 
" Forgive, dear heart ! " her sweet voice said : 

Her loving lips my forehead kissed. 

We passed from out the searching light. 
The summer night was calm and fair: 

I did not see her pitying eyes, 

I felt her soft hand smooth my hair. 

Her tender love unlocked my heart : 

'Mid falling tears at last I said, 
" Foresworn, indeed, to me that veil 

Because I only love the dead ! " 

She stood one moment statue-still. 

And musing spake in undertone, 
" The living love may colder grow ; 

The dead is safe with God alone." 

Elizabeth Whittier 

173 



SCOTCH HEATHER 

JUST a sprig of Scottish heather, in a letter where 
the tears, 
Which have blotted words together, have been dried 

these many years. 
Loving lines, yet sadly cheerful, — how " 't was lone- 
some here to-day," 
Then a pause, a little tearful, " Dear, you are so far 
away ! " 

Every sentence has its token of a love that could not 

fail 
Throbbing with a faith unspoken, though the ink is 

growing pale ; 
Faded are the lines dim-lettered like sad ghosts upon 

the page ; 
Ah, that poor love should be fettered with the rusty 

iron of age ! 

Then that line, " I picked the heather from that spot, 

dear, you will know, 
Where we walked and talked together — oh, it seems 

so long ago ! " 
And at last, " Love, how much better it will be when, 

by and by, 
We '11 not need to write a letter to each other, you 

and I ! " 

God ! with what another meaning that one line has 

long been true, 
With Death's silence intervening since I last have 

heard from you, 

174 



When you dropped Life's weary fetters, when you 

went so far away, — 
Thought you of unwritten letters I was missing from 

that day? 

If you know how I have needed some new token 

through the years 
You have slept away unheeded, it must move your soul 

to tears. 
If you still know how I love you, how I 've missed you 

day by day. 
Since the heather grew above you, you could never 

stay away. 

Take all treasures, Time, I cherish. Fame and Hope 

and Life at last, 
Fhtting things which needs must perish, — spare this 

memory of the Past 
Lying with a sprig of heather, in a letter, where the 

tears 
Which have blotted words together, have been dried 

these many years. 

Marion Manville 



THE TWO LOCKS OF HAIR 

A YOUTH, light-hearted and content, 
I wander through the world ; 
Here, Arab-like, is pitched my tent 
And straight again is furled. 

175 



Yet oft I dream, that once a wife 

Close in my heart was locked, 
And in the sweet repose of life 

A blessed child I rocked. 

I wake ! Away that dream — away ! 

Too long did it remain ! 
So long, that both by night and day 

It ever comes again. 

The end lies ever in my thought : 

To a grave so cold and deep 
The mother beautiful was brought ; 

Then dropt the child asleep. 

But now the dream is wholly o'er, 

I bathe mine eyes and see; 
And wander through the world once more, 

A youth so light and free. 

Two locks — and they are wondrous fair — 

Left me that vision mild ; 
The brown is from the mother's hair, 

The blond is from the child. 

And when I see that lock of gold, 

Pale grows the evening red ; 
And when the dark lock I behold, 
I wish that I were dead. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
Fro7n the Genu an of PJizer 



76 



w 



A SHADOW 

HAT lack the valleys and the mountains 
That once were green and gay ? 



What lack the babbling fountains? 
Their voice is sad to-day. 

Only the sound of a voice, 
Tender and sweet and low, 
That made the earth rejoice 
A year ago ! 



What lack the tender flowers ? 

A shadow is on the sun. 
What lack the merry hours, 

That I long that they were done ? 
Only two smiling eyes, 
That told of joy and mirth ; 
They are shining in the skies ; 
I mourn on earth ! 

What lacks my heart that makes it 

So weary and full of pain, 
That trembling Hope forsakes it, 
Never to come again ? 
Only another heart, 
Tender and all mine own ; 
In the still grave it Hes; 
I weep alone. 

Adelaide Anne Procter 

12 177 



RONDEL 

OUT of the past remembered eyes 
Pursue and hold me fast ; 
Their dark pure splendor never dies 

Out of the past. 
Save the young light that in them lies, 
Time all things fair doth blast, 
And still unresting onward flies ; 
But darkly though life's evening skies 
Their gathering shadows cast. 
Love-light for me shall ever rise 
Out of the past. 

Maxwell Gray 



178 



XV. 



Think not in death my love could ever cease ; 

If thou wast false ^ i)t07'e need there is for fne 

Still to be trice. 

James Russell Lowell 

There is hope that is never put by, 
There is love that refuses to die. 

Lucy Larcom 



T 



THE UNWISE CHOICE 

WO young men, when I was poor, 
Came and stood at my open door ; 



One said to me, " I have gold to give ; " 
And one, " I will love you while I live ! " 

My sight was dazzled, woe 's the day ! 
And I sent the poor young man away, — 

Sent him awa}^, I know not where, 
And my heart went with him, unaware. 

He did not give me any sighs. 
But he left his picture in my eyes ; 

And in my eyes it has always been : 
I have no heart to keep it in ! 

Beside the lane with hedges sweet. 
Where we parted, nevermore to meet, 

He pulled a flower of love's own hue, 
And where it had been came out two ! 

And in th' grass where he stood, for years. 
The dews of th' morning looked like tears. 

Still smiles the house where I was born 
Among its fields of wheat and corn, 
i8i 



Wheat and corn that strangers bind — 

I reap as I sowed, and I sowed to th' wind. 

As one who feels the truth break through 
His dream, and knows his dream untrue, 

I live where splendors shine, and sigh 
For a peace that splendor cannot buy, — 

Sigh for the day I was rich tho' poor, 
And saw th' two young men at my door ! 

Alice Gary 



A WOMAN'S DEATH-WOUND 

IT left upon her tender flesh no trace. 
The murderer is safe. As swift as light 
The weapon fell, and, in the summer night, 
Did scarce the silent, dewy air displace ; 
'T was but a word. A blow had been less base. 
Like dumb beast branded by an iron white 
With heat, she turned in blind and helpless flight; 
But then remembered, and with piteous face 
Came back. 

Since then the world has nothing missed 
In her, in voice or smile. But she — each day 
She counts until her dying be complete. 
One moan she makes, and ever doth repeat : 
" O lips that I have loved and kissed and kissed. 
Did I deserve to die this bitterest way?" 

Helen Hunt Jackson 
182 



A WOMAN'S THOUGHT 

I AM a woman — therefore I may not 
Call to him, cry to him, 
Fly to him, 
Bid him delay not ! 

And when he comes to me, I must sit quiet. 

Still as a stone. 

All silent and cold. 

If my heart riot, 

Crush and defy it ! 

Should I grow bold — 

Say one dear thing to him, 

All my life fling to him, 

Cling to him — 

What to atone 

Is enough for my sinning ! 

This were the cost to me. 

This were my winning, — 

That he were lost to me. 

Not as a lover 
At last if he part from me, 
Tearing my heart from me, 
Hurt beyond cure, — 
Calm and demure 
Then must I hold me, 
In myself fold me, 
Lest he discover; 

183 



Showing no sign to him, 
By look of mine to him, 
What he has been to me, — 
How my heart turns to him, 
Follows him, yearns to him, 
Prays him to love me, — 
Pity me, lean to me. 
Thou God above me ! 

Richard Watson Gilder 



BURNT SHIPS 

OLOVE, sweet Love, who came with rosy sail 
And foaming prow across the misty sea ! 
O Love, brave Love, whose faith was full and free 

That lands of sun and gold, which could not fail, 
Lay in the west, that bloom no wintry gale 
Could blight, and eyes whose love thine own 
should be. 
Called thee, with steadfast voice of prophecy. 
To shores unknown ! 

O Love, poor Love, avail 
Thee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries ; 
There is no sun, no bloom ; a cold wind strips 
The bitter foam from off the wave where dips 
No more thy prow; the eyes are hostile eyes; 
The gold is hidden ; vain thy tears and cries. 
O Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships ? 

Helen Hunt Jackson 
184 



PRESAGE 

IF, some day, I should seek those eyes 
So gentle now, and find the strange, 
Pale shadow of a coming change. 
To chill me with sad surprise : 

Shouldst thou recall what thou hast given, 
And turn me slowly cold and dumb. 
And thou thyself again become 

Remote as any star in heaven, — 

Would the sky ever seem again 

Perfectly clear? Would the serene. 
Sweet face of Nature steal between 

This grief and me, to dull its pain ? 

Oh, not for many a weary day 

Would sorrow soften to regret; 

And many a sun would rise and set 
Ere I, with cheerful heart, could say : 

" All undeserved it came. To-day 

God takes it back again, because 

Too beautiful a thing it was 
For such as I to keep for aye." 

And ever, through the coming years. 
My star remote in happy skies 
Would seem more heavenly fair through eyes 
Yet tremulous with unfallen tears. 

Celia Thaxter 
185 



XVI. 



Perhaps it will all cojne right at last : 

It tnay be, when all is done, 
We shall be together in some good world 

Where to wish and to have are one. 

Richard Henry Stoddard 



A LIFE LESSON 

THERE, little girl, don't cry ! 
They have broken your doll, I know ; 
And your tea-set blue, 
And your play-house, too, 
Are things of the long ago ; 

But childish troubles will soon pass by — • 
There, little girl, don't cry ! 



There, little girl, don't cry ! 

They have broken your slate, I know ; 
And the glad, wild ways 
Of your school-girl days 
Are things of the long ago ; 

But life and love will soon come by — 
There, little girl, don't cry ! 

There, little girl, don't cry ! 

They have broken your heart, I know ; 
And the rainbow gleams 
Of your youthful dreams 
Are things of the long ago ; 

But heaven holds all for which you sigh — 
There, little girl, don't cry ! 

James Whitcomb Riley 



189 



I CANNOT THINK BUT GOD MUST KNOW 

T CANNOT think but God must know 
-■- About the thing I long for so ; 
I know He is so good, so kind, 
I cannot think but He will find 
Some way to help, some way to show 
Me to the thing I long for so. 

I stretch my hand — it lies so near; 
It looks so sweet; it looks so dear. 
" Dear Lord," I pray, " oh, let me know 
If it is wrong to want it so ! " 
He only smiles — He does not speak ; 
My heart grows weaker and more weak 
With looking at the thing so dear, 
Which lies so far and yet so near. 

Now, Lord, I leave at Thy loved feet 
This thing which looks so near, so sweet ; 
I will not seek, I will not long, — 
I almost fear I have been wrong. 
I '11 go and work the harder, Lord, 
And wait till by some loud, clear word 
Thou callest me to Thy loved feet 
To take this thing so dear, so sweet. 

Saxe Holm 
190 



DIVIDED 

AND yet I know past all doubting, truly — 
And knowledge greater than grief can dim — 
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly — 
Yea, better — e'en better than I love him. 

And as I walk by the vast calm river, 

The awful river so dread to see, 
I say, " Thy breadth and thy depth forever 

Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me." 

Jean Ingelow 



I HEAR A DEAR, FAMILIAR TONE 

I HEAR a dear, familiar tone, 
A loving hand is in my own, 
And earth seems made for me alone. 

If I my fortunes could have planned, 
I would not have let go that hand; 
But they must fall who learn to stand. 

And how to blend life's varied hues, 
What ill to find, what good to lose, 
My Father knoweth best to choose. 

Alice Cary 
191 



FROM "EVANGELINE" 

SOMETIMES she spake with those who had seen 
her beloved and known him, 
But it was long ago in some far-off place or forgotten. 

Then would they say, " Dear child ! why dream and 

wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as 

loyal ? 
Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 

loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy. 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid Saint Catherine's 

tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, 

" I cannot ! 
Whither my heart has gone there follows my hand, and 

not elsewhere. 
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and 

illumines the pathway. 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 

darkness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor. 
Said, with a smile, "O daughter! thy God thus 

speaketh within thee ! 
Talk not of wasted affection, — affection never was 

wasted ; 

192 



If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, return- 
ing 
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 

of refreshment; 
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to 

the fountain. 
Patience ! accomplish thy labor, accomplish thy work 

of affection ! 
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 

is godlike, 
Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 

is made godlike. 
Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 

worthy of heaven ! " 
Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 

and waited. 
Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the 

ocean. 
But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 

whispered, " Despair not ! " 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



WHICH IS BEST? 

WHAT if I saved from trampling feet 
The drooping plumes of a wounded bird, 
And tended its hurt with a gentle hand 
Till its life new stirred ? 
13 193 



What if it nestled against my cheek, 
And tamed its shyness upon my breast, 

Until I believed that it loved me more 
Than its old-time nest ? 

And if some day, when I prized it most, 

It should leave my hand with a sudden spring, 

And cleave the blue of a summer sky 
With a freshened wing, 

And never pause at my pleading call, — 
Never come back to my desolate breast, — 

And forget I had saved its life, and forget 
I had loved it best, 

Should I never open my arms again 
To any helpless or suffering thing? 

Never bind up the bruised heart 
Nor the broken wing? 

Better a thousand times, to bear 

A blow in the place of an earned caress, 

Than to turn aside into selfish ways, 
Or to pity less. 

Better the long abiding pain 

Of a wronged love, in its sufferance meek, 
Than the hardened heart and the bitter tongue 

And the sullen cheek. 

Laura C. Redden 



194 



THORNLESS ROSES 

NO rose may bloom without a thorn ? " 
Come down the garden path and see 
How brightly in the scented air 
They bloom for you and me ! 

See how like rosy clouds, they lie 
Against the perfect, stainless blue ! 

See how they toss their airy heads, 
And smile for me, for you ! 

No scanty largess, meanly doled, — 
No pallid blooms, by two, by three, 

But a whole crowd of pink-white wings 
Fluttering for you and me. 

So fair they are I cannot choose ; 

I pluck the rich spoils here and there; 
I heap them on your waiting arms ; 

I twine them in your hair. 

There is no thorn among them all, — 
No sharp sting in the heart of bliss, — 

No bitter in the honeyed cup, — 
No burning in the kiss. 

Nay, quote the proverb if you must, 

And mock the truth you will not see ; 
Nathless, Love's thornless roses blow 
Somewhere for you and me. 

Julia C. R. Dorr 
195 



I HAVE THE COURAGE TO BE GAY 

" T HAVE the courage to be gay, 
-^ Although she lieth lapped away 
Under the daisies, for I say, 

' Thou wouldst be glad if thou couldst see : ' 
My constant thought makes manifest 
I have not what I love the best. 
But I must thank God for the rest 
While I hold heaven a verity." 

Jean Ingelow 



o. 



WHAT sequel; 



F Love that never found its earthly end, 
What sequel ? streaming eyes and broken hearts ? 
And all the same as if it had not been ? 

Alfred Tennyson 



NAUGHT is the same " as if Love had not been ! 
Where it hath shone it is like sunlight poured 
On seeds which slept, surprising naked soil 
Into new verdure, and an unhoped spring. 

Edwin Arnold 



196 



XVII. 



Love is coine with a sojig and a smile^ 
Welcotne Love with a smile and a song. 
Love can stay but a little while, 
Why caftnot he stay ? They call him away ; 
Ye do him wrong, ye do hi7n wrong; 
Love will stay for a whole life long. 

Alfred Tennyson 



IN TWOS 

SOMEWHERE in the world there hide 
Garden-gates that no one sees. 
Save they come in happy twos, — 
Not in ones, nor yet in threes. 

But from every maiden's door 
Leads a pathway straight and true ; 
Map and survey find it not, — 
He who finds, finds room for two. 

Then they see the garden-gates ! 
Never skies so blue as theirs. 
Never flowers so many, sweet. 
As for those who come in pairs. 

Round and round the alleys wind ; 
Now a cradle bars the way, 
Now a httle mound, behind, — 
So the two go through the day. 

When no nook in all the lanes 
But has heard a song or sigh, 
Lo ! another garden-gate 
Opens as the two go by. 

In they wander, knowing not; 
" Five and Twenty " fills the air 
With a silvery echo low. 
All about the startled pair, 
199 



Happier yet these garden walks ; 
Closer, heart to heart, they lean ; 
Stiller, softer, falls the light ; 
Few the twos, and far between. 

Till at last as on they pass 
Down the paths so well they know, 
Once again at hidden gates 
Stand the two ; they enter slow. 

Golden gates of Fifty Years, 
May our two your latchet press ! 
Garden of the Sunset Land, 
Hold their dearest happiness! 

Then a quiet walk again ; 
Then a wicket in the wall ; 
Then one stepping on alone, — 
Then two at the Heart of All ! 

W. C. Gannett 



OHE was sent forth 
To bring that light which never wintry blast 
Blows out, nor rain, nor snow, extinguishes, — 
The Hght which shines with loving eyes upon 
Eyes that love back, till they can see no more. 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 

200 



SONG 

LOVE is not a feeling to pass away, 
Like the balmy breath of a summer-day; 
It is not — it cannot be — laid aside ; 
It is not a thing to forget or hide. 
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me ! 
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree. 

Love is not a passion of earthly mould, 
As a thirst for honor, or fame, or gold ; 
For when all these wishes have died away, 
The deep strong love of a brighter day, 
Though nourished in secret, consumes the more, 
As the slow rust eats to the iron's core. 

Charles Dickens 



TOGETHER 

THEY were young and glad together 
In the dawn of life's first May, 
When in bright and sunny weather 
Sang the birds from every spray. 
Clear the heaven shone out above them; 

Blue and radiant were the skies ; 
All things living seemed to love them; 
And the spring gleamed in her eyes. 

201 



Through life's summer still together, 

Hand in hand and heart to heart, 
They have borne the sultry weather 

And have watched the days depart. 
Still she is to him the maiden 

Who stepped daintily of old 
Through the grass, her apron laden 

With bright buttercups of gold. 

Still together, still together, 

They will face life's autumn hours ; 
In the grim November weather 

Love will strew their path with floAvers. 
For their love has ever brightened 

Since the first long loving day. 
And their happiness has heightened. 

Though their hair is growing gray ! 

George Barlow 



FROM "ENOCH ARDEN " 

WOMAN, disturb me not now at the last, 
But let me hold my purpose till I die, 
Sit down again ; mark me and understand, 
While I have power to speak. I charge you now 
When you shall see her tell her that T died 
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her 
Save for the bar between us, loving her 
As when she laid her head beside my own. 

Alfred Tennyson 

202 



TWO EPOCHS 

LOVERS by a dim sea strand 
Looking wave-ward, hand in hand; 
Silent, tremble with the bliss 
Of their first betrothal kiss. 

Lovers still, tho' wedded long ! 
Time true love can never wrong ! 
Gazing, faithful, hand in hand, 
O'er a darker sea and strand : 

Ah ! one lover's face is wan 
As a wave the moon shines on ; 
But those strange tides stretched afar 
Know not sun, nor moon, nor star. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne 



203 



XVIII. 



O winds ! ye are too rough, too rough / 
O sprmg ! thou art not long enough 

For sweetness; and for thee, 
O love ! thou still 7mcst ove?'pass 
Time's low and dark and narrow glass, 

And Jill eternity. 



Alice Gary 



LOVE AND DEATH 

WHAT time the mighty moon was gathering light 
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, 
And all about him roU'd his lustrous eyes ; 
When, turning round a cassia, full in view 
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew. 
And talking to himself, first met his sight. 
"You must begone," said Death, "these walks are 

mine." 
Love wept, and spread his sheeny vans for flight; 
Yet ere he parted said, " This hour is thine ; 
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree 
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, 
So in the light of great eternity 
Life eminent creates the shade of death ; 
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall. 
But I shall reign forever over all." 

Alfred Tennyson 



AFTER-SONG 

THROUGH love to light ! Oh, wonderful the way 
That leads from darkness to the perfect day ! 
From darkness and from sorrow of the night 
To morning that comes singing o'er the sea. 
Through love to light! Through light, O God, to 

Thee, 
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light ! 

Richard Watson Gilder 
207 



FROM "THE SINGER" 

O SILENT land to which we move, 
Enough if there alone be love ; 
And mortal need can ne'er outgrow 
What it is waiting to bestow ! 

O white soul ! from that far-off shore 
Float some sweet song the waters o'er; 
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, 
With the old voice we loved so well ! 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



FROM "SNOW-BOUND" 

YET love will dream and faith will trust 
(Since He who knows our need is just), 
That somehow, som.ewhere meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress trees ! 
Who hopeless lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned in hours of faith, 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Life is ever lord of Death 
And Love can never lose its own ! 

John Greenleaf Whittier 
208 



THREE MEETINGS 

OTHE happy meeting from over the sea, 
When I love my friend and my friend loves me; 
And we stand face to face, and for letters read 
There are endless words to be heard and said : 
With a glance between whiles, shy, anxious, half 

strange. 
As if asking, " Say now is there any change?" 
Till we settle down just as we used to be, 
For I love my friend and my friend loves me. 

O the blessed meeting of lovers true 

Against whom Fate has done all that Fate could do 

And then dropped vanquished ; while over those slain 

Dead weeks, months, years, of parting and pain, 

Hope lifts her banner, gay, gallant, and fair, 

Untainted, untorn in the balmy air; 

And the heaven of the future, golden and bright, 

Arches above them — God guards the right. 

But O for the meeting to come one day. 
When the spirit slips out of its house of clay; 
When the stand ers-by with a gentle sign 
Shall kindly cover this face of mine. 
And I leap — whither ? — ah, who can know ? 
But outward, onward, as spirits must go, 
Till eye to eye without fear I see 
God — and my lost — as they see me. 

Dinah Maria Muloch-Craik 
14 209 



LOVE IS ETERNAL 

LOVE is eternal, so the strong souls say, 
But seeing how hard life doth give the lie 
Unto the mighty words, with sneer or sigh, 
The weaker ones cry out in sad dismay 
That love is changeful as an April day, 
Holding within itself no strength whereby 
It can the subde shafts of time defy, 
And in the heart of man abide alway. 

Not every heart is great enough to hold 
A great immortal tenant. Love hath fled 

Always from natures narrow, weak, and cold. 
Know, when by scornful lips you hear it said 

That Love is traitor, that the truth is told 
Not of dear Love, but of that soul instead. 

Carlotta Perry 



THERE will I ask of Christ the Lord 
Thus much for him and me, — 
Only to live as once on earth 

With Love, — only to be. 
As then awhile, forever now 
Together, I and he. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

210 



A FAREWELL 

THE west-wind, laden with fragrance, blows, 
The dewdrops shine in the crimson rose ; 

— Is there something yet to tell? 
Ay, winds must pass and dewdrops fall ; 
Naught that is gone can we recall: 

So now, dear Love, farewell ! 

Sweet lips prattle, and laugh and sing, 
White arms tenderly, closely cling ; 

— Is there something sad to tell ? 
Ay, the sweet lips shall silent be, 
And the arms unclasp in their agony: 

So now, dear Love, farewell ! 

Then is there nothing that God has made 
That will not one day fall or fade ? 

— O Poet, in mercy tell ! 

Ay, love shall reign in these hearts of ours 
When eyes, and lips, and wind-waved flowers 
Have known their last farewell. 

For love is purer than dewdrops are, 
The winds go never so wide and far, 

And none may truly tell 
How when the close caress is gone, 
And words are silent, true love lives on, 

Never to say farewell ! 

George Arnold 

211 



FROM "TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD" 

STILL on the lips of all we question 
The finger of God's silence lies ; 
Will the lost hands in ours be folded? 
Will the shut eyelids ever rise ? 

O friend, no proof beyond this yearning, 
This outreach of our hearts we need ; 

God will not mock the hope he giveth, 
No love he prompts shall vainly plead. 

Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, 
And call our loved ones o'er and o'er ; 

Some day their arms shall close about us. 
And the old voices speak once more. 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



o 



LOVE and Death ! 
Ye have sad meetings on this changeful earth, 
Many and sad ! — but airs of heavenly breath 
Shall melt the links that bind you, for your birth 

Is far apart. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans 



N 



OT Death is strong enough to part asunder 
Whom Life and Love hath joined. 

Edwin Arnold 

2X2 



HE AND SHE 



" OHE is dead ! " they said to him, " Come away; 



SHE 
Ki 



I" 



iss her ! and leave her ! — thy love is clay 

They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair ; 
On her forehead of marble they laid it fair ; 

Over her eyes, which gazed too much, 
They drew her lids with gentle touch ; 

With a tender touch they closed up well 
The sweet thin hps that had secrets to tell; 

About her brows, and her dear, pale face 
They tied her veil and her marriage-lace ; 

And drew on her white feet her white silk shoes: — 
Which were the whiter no eye could choose ! 

And over her bosom they crossed her hands; 
" Come away," they said, " God understands ! " 

And then there was Silence ; and nothing there 
But the Silence — and scents of eglantere. 

And jasmine, and roses, and rosemary ; 

For they said, " As a lady should He, lies she ! " 

And they held their breath as they left the room 
With a shudder to glance at its stillness and gloom. 
213 



But he — who loved her too well to dread 
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead, — 

He lit his lamp, and took the key, 

And turn'd it ! — alone again — he and she ! 

He and she ! but she would not speak, 

Though he kiss'd in the old place, the quiet cheek ; 

He and she ; yet she would not smile. 
Though he call'd her the name that was fondest ere- 
while : 

He and she ; and she did not move 
To any one passionate whisper of love ! 

Then said, " Cold lips ! and breast without breath ! 
Is there no voice — no language of death 

" Dumb to the ear and still to the sense. 
But to heart and to soul distinct, — intense ? 

" See, now, — I listen with soul, not ear — 
What was the secret of dying, Dear ? 

" Was it the infinite wonder of all. 

How the spirit could let life's flower fall ? 

*' Or was it a greater marvel to feel 
The perfect calm o'er the agony steal ? 

" Was the miracle greatest to find how deep, 
Beyond all dreams, sank downward that sleep ? 
214 



" Did life roll backward its record, Dear, 

And show, as they say it does, past things clear? 

" And was it the innermost heart of bliss 
To find out so what a wisdom love is ? 

" Oh, perfect Dead ! oh, dead most dear, 
I hold the breath of my soul to hear; 

" I listen — as deep as to horrible hell. 

As high as glad heaven; and you do not tell ! 

" There must be pleasure in dying, Sweet, 
To make you so placid from head to feet ! 

" I would teWfOU, Darling, if I were dead, 
And 'twere your hot tears upon my brow shed. 

" I would say though the Angel of death had laid 
His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. 

" You should not ask, vainly, with streaming eyes, 
Which in Death's touch was the chiefest surprise, 

" The very strangest and suddenest thing 
Of all the surprises that dying must bring." 

Oh, foolish world ! Oh, most kind dead ! 
Though he told me, who will believe it was said ? 

Who will believe that he heard her say. 
With the soft rich voice, in the dear old way : 
215 



" The utmost wonder is this, — I hear, 

And see you, and love you, and kiss you, Dear ; 

" I can speak, now you listen with soul alone ; 
If your soul could see, it would all be shown 

" What a strange, delicious amazement is Death, 
To be without body and breathe without breath. 

" I should laugh for joy if you did not cry; 
Oh, listen ; Love lasts ! — Love never will die ! 



" I am only your Angel who was your Bride ! 

ve never di 
Edwin Arnold 



And I know that though dead I have never died." 



THE VIOLET 

GOD does not send us strange flowers every year, 
When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant 
places. 
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces, 
The violet is here. 

It all comes back, the odor, grace, and hue. 
Each sweet relation of its life repeated ; 
No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated, 
It is the thing we knew. 

So after death's winter it must be, 
God will not put strange signs in heavenly places. 
The old love shall look out from the old faces, 
Veilchen ! I shall have thee. 

Mrs. a. D. T. Whitney 
216 



WE TWO 

A H, painful-sweet ! how can I take it in ! 
-^^ That somewhere in the illimitable blue 
Of God's pure space, which men call Heaven, we 
two 
Again shall find each other, and begin 
The infinite life of love, a life akin 
To angels', — only angels never knew 
The ecstacy of blessedness that drew 
Us each to each, even in this world of sin. 

Yea, find each other ! The remotest star 

Of all the galaxies would hold in vain 
Our souls apart, that have been heretofore 
As closely interchangeable as are 

One mind and spirit. Oh, joy that aches to pain. 

To be together — we two — forever more ! 

Margaret J. Preston 

AT END 

A T end of Love, at end of Life, 
^ At end of Hope, at end of Strife, 
At end of all we cling to so, — 
The sun is setting — must we go ? 

At dawn of Love, at dawn of Life, 
At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, 
At dawn of all we long for so, — 
The sun is rising — let us go ! 

Louise Chandler Moultox 
217 



INDEX TO TITLES. 



I. 

PAGE 

Love ! blessed Love ! if we could hang our walls . . 2 

Love 3 

Love 4 

For life, with all it yields of joy or woe 4 

From " The Book of Love " 5 

Love's Coming 5 

True Love 6 

Oh, Love is not a Summer Mood 7 

From " The Sea of Fire " 7 

From "The Cotter's Saturday Night" 8 

True Love 9 

A Lover with his Loved One sailed the Sea .... 10 

Herein is Love 11 

Love seeketh not itself to please 12 

A Question 12 

A Woman's Shortcomings 13 

And love ? 14 

From " Alice of Monmouth " 15 

IL 

No life is so strong and complete 18 

He was a friend indeed iS 

A Friend 19 

219 



PAGE 

We love but Few 20 

The Girdle of Friendship 21 

Friendship 22 

O near Ones, dear Ones 23 

A Tribute 24 

My Kate 25 

III. 

Pour out thy love like the rush of a river 30 

From " The Message of an iEolian Harp," — We cannot 

love too much 31 

Learn that to love is the one way to know 32 

Love much 33 

Sonnet, "Trust me, — I have not earned your dear 

Rebuke" 34 

Go forth in Life not seeking Love 34 

Love's Fulfilling 35 

What shall I do for my Love ? • • 3^ 

Oh, if thou be'st True Lover 37 

From " The Castle in the Air " 37 

The Sea-Shell 38 

Give all to love 39 

IV. 

Am I not the nobler through thy love } .42 

If aught can make me seek 42 

Softly the Evening Shadows 43 

Some Lover's dear Thought 43 

A Face 44 

From "The Mistress of the Manse" 45 

To Harriett 45 

From " The Angel in the House " 46 

Friendship 47 

220 



PAGE 

God measures souls by their capacity 47 

Happy are they who kiss thee 48 

Love, the Musician 48 

A Friendship „ . . 49 

I remember the only wise thing I ever did 49 

In the Air 50 

All true, deep feeling purifies the heart ...... 50 

Sonnet, — " If it be true that any beauteous thing" . 51 

Going to Church 51 

With my love this knowledge too was given . . . . 52 

V. 

I meet her on the dusty street 54 

I loved thee for that dear, deep lovingness .... 54 

Calais Sands 55 

Tying her Bonnet under her Chin 56 

Love on Deck 58 

A Red, Red Rose 59 

In a Gondola 60 

A Nice Correspondent 61 

The Clover Blossoms 6^ 

Annie Laurie 64 

Under the Rose 65 

A Love Extravaganza 65 

The Smile of her I love 66 

Love's Prayer 66 

Love 67 

The chords of love must be strong as death .... 68 

VI. 

I love you. Words are small 70 

I love you, Dear 71 

**I'm sorry that I spelt the word" 71 

221 



PAGE 

The Sweetest Flower that blows 72 

I love thee 72 

Song from a Drama 73 

Measure for Measure 74 

Sonnet, — " O my heart's heart and you who are to 

me" 75 

Because 75 

One Face 77 

From "The Cup of Youth" 77 

A Love Symphony 78 

From " The Ancestress " 79 

Four Words 80 

Urvasi 81 

Protestations . 82 

From " The Spanish Student " 83 

Benedicite 84 



VII. 

It has been such a day as that thou knowest ... 88 

Not from the whole wide world I choose thee ... 88 

What the Rose saw 89 

Lovers 90 

From " Life's Mysteries " 91 

From " The Gardener's Daughter "...,... 91 

Won't You? 92 

Kiss me softly 92 

Proposal 93 

Four-Leaf Clover 94 

Love's Philosophy 95 

The cup of love the hands of two hold 95 

Indeed I love thee 95 

From ** Queen Mary," — The Happiest Hour ... 96 

Evening Song 96 

222 



VIII. 

PAGE 

A weak white girl 98 

So these lives that had run thus far in separate 

channels 9S 

Marriage 99 

Happy, happier far than thou 99 

The Little Brown Cabin 100 

Summer 100 

She was mine loi 

Home 102 

For Thoughts 102 

The Two Anchors 103 

And in that twilight hush, God drew their hearts . . 105 

For there are two heavens, sweet 105 

On a Cyclamen 106 

From "The Hanging of the Crane" 106 

Two Lovers 107 

Where we love is home 108 



IX. 

lady, there be many things no 

Love took me softly by the Hand in 

Something the heart must have to cherish . . . . in 

1 know myself the Best Beloved of All 112 

Oh, that we Two were Maying 112 

Three Kisses 113 

With what a graceful tenderness he loves .... 113 

My Letters 114 

May and Love 114 

From " In the Garden " 115 

I did hear you talk 115 

223 



PACK 

I think we had the chief of all love's joys .... 115 

Lovers ii6 

Answer to a Child's Question 116 

Love Notes 117 

Song from " Piero Da Castiglione " 117 

On a Clock 118 

Love's Language 118 

There is a glory in tree and blossom 1 19 

X. 

Life, what after-joy hast thou 122 

Nothing is better, I well know 122 

Life may to you bring every good 122 

Life's Gifts 123 

Eureka 123 

1 simply say that she is good 124 

The Song of the Camp 125 

Love is the only good in the world 126 

Gone 127 

Best 127 

Love's light is strange to you.? Ah, me! 128 

An Extravaganza 129 

The Two Loves 129 

Better Things 131 

From " Katrina " 132 

Wedded '^ . . 132 

Love's Thread of Gold 133 

From " Lay of the Last Minstrel " 134 

Love among the Ruins 134 

From "The Children of the Lord's Supper" ... 138 

Eros 138 

The gate of Heaven is Love 138 



224 



XI. 

PAGE 

He sang out of his soul what he found there . . . 140 

Love is not to be reasoned down or lost 140 

I never knew it, Love, till now 141 

Love scorns Degrees . 141 

The Last Letter 142 

For they alone have need of sorrow . 143 

All the Year Round 144 

Love and Life 144 

The Heart's Call 145 

My Jean 146 

From " Harold " 147 

Ah, Love! let us be true 14S 

From " Evangeline '* 149 

Love's Final Powers 149 

From " Artevelde " 150 

I cannot tell the spell that binds thine image . . . 150 

xn. 

Too full of love my soul is to find place 152 

I do not love thee less for what is done 152 

Two Truths 153 

At Noon and Midnight 153 

Our Own 154 

A Letter o . . 155 

We kissed again with Tears 156 

Forgiven 157 

It is n't the thing you do, dear '157 

Her fittest triumph is to show that good 158 

XIII. 

Not to be with you, not to see your face 160 

O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more . . 160 
15 22s 



PAGE 

Gone i6i 

From " Michael Angelo " i6i 

Absence 162 

The Boat of my Lover 163 

The Loved One Ever Near 164 

But oh I 't was hard to have him go, — to know . . 164 

Among the Heather 165 

They Parted 165 

Good-by, Sweetheart 166 

O Days and Hours 167 

Parting Words 168 

Words for Parting 168 



XIV. 

Thither where he lies buried 172 

Peace, wild- wrung hands I hush, sobbing breath ! . . 172 

The Wedding Veil 173 

Scotch Heather 174 

The Two Locks of Hair 175 

A Shadow 177 

Rondel 178 



XV. 

Think not in death my love could ever cease . . . 180 

There is hope that is never put by 180 

The Unwise Choice 181 

A Woman's Death-Wound 182 

A Woman's Thought 183 

Burnt Ships 184 

Presage 185 

226 



XVI. 

PAGE 

Perhaps it will all come right at last i88 

A Life Lesson 189 

I cannot think but God must know .190 

Divided. 191 

I hear a Dear, Familiar Tone 191 

From " Evangeline " 192 

Which is Best 193 

Thornless Roses 195 

I have the Courage to be Gay 196 

What Sequel.? 196 

Naught is the same " as if Love had not been " . . 196 



XVIL 

Love is come with a song and a smile 198 

In Twos 199 

She was sent forth 200 

Song 201 

Together 201 

From " Enoch Arden " 202 

Two Epochs 203 

XVIII. 

O winds ! ye are too rough, too rough 206 

Love and Death 207 

After-Song 207 

From " The Singer " 20S 

From " Snow-Bound " 208 

Three Meetings 209 

Love is Eternal 210 

There will I ask of Christ the Lord 210 

227 



PAGE 

A Farewell 211 

P'rom " To Lydia Maria Child " 212 

O Love and Death 212 

Not Death is strong enough to part asunder . . . 212 

He and She 213 

The Violet 216 

"We Two 217 

At End 217 



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